Maybe I should do sporadic progress reports. It'd be nice to shout my accomplishments into the void, but will I have accomplishments to shout? Let's see.

The World is Your Onion

According to my filesystem, it was two days after posting "I'm getting back to real work" that I started working on The Onion of Despair. Sure, it's another snack-sized PuzzleScript game just to keep myself from starving... but actually, I've wanted a game like this for years now.

I think we're long overdue to come full circle already and parody the genres of parodies we have created. In particular, Irredeemably Dark Interpretations of Lighthearted, E-Rated Video Games™.

My friends, why do we automatically categorize collecting coins in video games as "stealing" them? From whom, this guy? Why is stomping cartoonish enemies suddenly a horrifying act of depravity? I mean, they always come back just like us! Why must we fill the gaps in our empty lore with pessimism?

Even in a world full of delicious mushrooms, everyone decides they want onions for some doggone reason. I think it's kinda silly, so this game is my attempt at making fun of that. My only fear is that in making fun of pretentiousness, I might accidentally become pretentious myself. Oh well.

Anyway, The Onion of Despair was featured among other puzzlers released in September on the Thinky Games blog, so that's pretty cool. And there you have it. I swear I'll get back to real game engines soon.

git gud lol

GitHub seems to really, really want you to write open-source projects. That's great and all, but I'm not sure the world would benefit from my shoddy hobby code. So I've set up a self-hosted Git service for myself instead. That way, I can host as many Wikis and Packages as I darn well want without hitting the private repository limits (because there are none).

By the way, setting up HTTPS for it was a bit of an adventure. Seriously... connect with unencrypted HTTP and no one bats an eye; connect with self-served HTTPS and everyone loses their minds.

Making a Line to Not Step Out Of

A while back, I tuned into a developer commentary livestream, in which the host mentioned that the role of the game designer (the guy who has the ideas) is distinct from his job as a game programmer (the guy who actually programs in the ideas).

While the following insight may not have been the focal point of that statement, I guess I accidentally gained it anyway: in the real world of game development, of course your programmers aren't doing art! So of course I should separate my program and art workflows as much as I can.

And yes, as a solo developer, I kinda get to cheat a bit... until I don't. What if I wanna enlist the help of someone to upgrade from programmer art? It makes sense that I should have a neat process that any artistic fellow can follow.

End intermission

Future blog posts will surely be intermittent, but what will they be? Well, for one, I've got some reflections to share on the development of Millie's Weird World. I also wanna start a Cool Game Spotlight series for great family-friendly games that aren't mine. Anyway, thanks for reading.