Hey again,

Not a whole lot has changed since the last post. The vendor system has turned out to be a lot of trouble. I did get the enemy AI rework done, and it works well; I also (mostly) fully implemented the buildings' functionality, from hiding in them to repairing them. Still no win condition, or lose condition for that matter, but that shouldn't be hard; both are just a glorified "return to title screen," which I also, uh, haven't made yet.

Actually, that paragraph sums up the state of this project super well. There are a few things that need doing before the update can be released, and most of them are, like, halfway done, but rely on other halfway done things in order to become fully ready or even testable. For example, sleeping in order to restore stamina is completely ready to go - I've already got a sleeping astronaut sprite, and the code I'll need to write is just "while sleeping, restore stamina," but the UI that the sleep button will go on isn't ready yet either, so I haven't made it yet. This is the most common problem I've been running into. Of course, for things like this, I could just make a temporary UI, but that would take time better used for the half-done things that other aspects rely on.

In addition to those, there are things that are just completely unimplemented; setting traps for enemies, for example, will require making sprites for the traps, a system for placing the traps, and an inventory interface to see the traps you've got. Don't even get me started on the specifics of what the traps will do - my spaghetti code doesn't currently allow for even half of what I want to do for this mechanic. There comes a time when you have to cut things in order to meet a deadline. I won't be cutting traps, I think, but I was also planning to do a visual overhaul and controller support. Those will have to wait until 0.8.

All in all, though, I'm very close to having the actual game ready. Everything after 0.7 will be aesthetic or balance changes, and probably plenty of bugfixes. Game content, like bonus difficulties and such, will be added as well. However, the main game's core "campaign" will be complete. My goal is for all full playthroughs of the game to be pretty much identical from 0.7 onward, balance changes excluded.

As it stands, I have no idea if the game will even be fun. Obviously, I hope it is, and in testing certain mechanics I have much more of a blast than I thought I would - it's very cathartic to enjoy something that you've created yourself, by the way - but when everything comes together, I think it has a good chance of feeling like a collection of mechanics that, while cool in theory, add up to be a slow and monotonous experience that's only worth one playthrough tops. You know, the kind that you put down halfway through and never pick up again. To be honest, that's okay. I'll feel pretty crappy if it turns out that way, but the point of this game wasn't ever to be great.

This is my first game ever; for around six months now, I've been trying to make it as fun as it can be, but that wasn't how I thought about it when I came up with the idea. This game was supposed to be a learning experience. I have several games that I really want to make, but in trying to make them, I realized just how much I needed to learn before I could fully realize those ideas. I started this project BECAUSE I knew next to nothing about game design or Godot or whatever, and I've learned a lot, probably more than I was expecting to. With everything I know now, future development might just go much smoother and faster. Here's hoping, anyway.

So, yeah, thanks for taking a look at my glorified journal here. Version 0.7 is still at least a month away. My college semester is rolling up to its conclusion, and this will be both a very good thing and a very bad thing. On one hand, studying and exams will take up all possible programming time. On the other, once everything's wrapped up in mid-December, I'll have no other responsibilities than to work on this game, and I should be able to return to a development speed on par with my pace during summer (in other words, surprisingly fast). Also, this week is pretty open for me. I've got at least two days of little to no homework (though I still have to attend classes). On top of that, there's no class on Thanksgiving. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to squeeze the update out before November ends? Don't count on it, but I'll let you know.

Thanks for reading!