Dev Log: November 21, 2024
I’m home from my trip and I’ve begun my work on Systems.
Actually, I started it on my 7-hour flight because I couldn’t wait. After months of story and visual work, I’m hungry to code. Finally, some cold hard numbers in a world where nothing is ever objectively true or correct!
Not so fast, of course… These numbers need to be fun. As I’m coding I’m also spending plenty of time on the UI and how it feels to move around. I need to make sure the player actually wants to use all these systems I’m creating.
And truthfully, the numbers won’t mean much on their own. A while back I spoke to Tony Howard-Arias about keeping systems opaque in our games and allowing for numbers to roughly represent feelings, vibes… human stuff. It almost seemed devilish to admit that out loud, like I was lying to the player. But the things I’m looking to convey are not statistical, and the lie is my way of translating to the player the true meaning behind those numbers. I am converting integers to strings in a highly complex way that a computer can not do!!
The main thing is that it all needs to seem fair. The player should be able to read their outcome and more or less understand how they got there. I haven’t always been good at this. But I’m trying to be more honest.
Okay, so I wrote that a few days ago but didn’t get around to posting it. First of all, say goodbye to this bitch above me. Systems have taken their toll on me. I am not the woman my loved ones remember. I’m a hideous thing. I spent three days wiring the book exchange UI, pushing my build last night with a nasty crashing bug. I walk through the house agitated, puzzling over code that quickly becomes meaningless. I end up editing lines without remembering how I got to them.
This is not the easy work. Story is the easy work. Whatever I’m not doing now is the easy work. When I’m doing this kind of work the evil questions start to enter, questions like “Will this be the impassable thing?” and of course it won’t be, but the work put the fear in me, so congrats to the work.
Anyway I hopped out of bed at 6am and fixed the bug. On to what’s next.