vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #80 on: September 13, 2024, 05:39:53 PM » |
|
I made progress on the Steam payment API stuff today. It's mostly done; I just need to - parse a time string - tell steam to process agreements once finalized - change the in-game dialog to be $6.99/month in the steam version because it's more expensive for steam fees - allow for cancelling steam subscriptions in-game - search codebase for TODO And additional things might come up like steam's api might behave weirdly and I'll have to work around that. Steam doesn't recommend calling GetReports faster than every minute (43k requests/month)! This means receiving membership will be slow compared to on the official Stripe version. I could add code that works around this (giving membership when I call FinalizeTransaction and ProcessAgreement, then not duplicating that in GetReports; I'd need to store the order somewhere permanently until it is removed in a GetReports call) but I don't think it's of the highest priority; it's the type of thing I'd pay someone to do if I had the funding. As a solo developer bootstrapping a game, I need to focus on important things. I've been slow at this compared to how fast I could work through it. Maybe it's sleep or exercise, or it's just mental fatigue. 
|
|
« Last Edit: September 13, 2024, 05:45:04 PM by vitalash »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #81 on: September 14, 2024, 03:14:19 PM » |
|
I did the todo list from yesterday today, but steam's system is weird and payments stay at the "Processing" stage. Might just be a thing with the sandbox. I sent a support request to steam about this.
Some ideas for tomorrow:
- Don't use steam-initiated billing but rather game server-initiated. May be annoying but the reasons I thought it would be don't actually seem like valid reasons. May not even solve the issue. - Give the membership immediately on FinalizeTransaction success rather than in GetReports. I'd need to write my own deduplicating thing so they don't get their reward twice (maybe GetReport will report if it's recurring or initiaing... that'd simplify it). I don't know what "Processing" means though! Steam seems to be in support of giving it in FinalizeTransaction though... - Wait for steam support to respond; work on important gameplay things as I've been doing. - Test on the non sandbox server (expensive!)
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #82 on: September 15, 2024, 05:21:58 PM » |
|
Today ended up being a break day.
I need to spend my valuable time on this project ensuring it is as good as it can be — that I don't work on fluff. I want this steam thing working, but it's an opaque API and I got no respnose yet. I want this game to be fun and full of repeatable content. I'll let my brain stew on this.
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #83 on: September 16, 2024, 06:14:27 PM » |
|
I added bunny and horse ears for players, and shrines the player can sacrifice themselves at to permanently become a pettable bunny or horse. I added a deep mine with lava and gold and iron and sapphire. No use for sapphire yet! I submitted the game for steam review (the issue might've been that i was requesting a timestamp in the future, and that updates are ont immediate but rahter roughly minute-ly? Or maybe it just resolved itself... Regardless, it works now) I didn't make any gifs today; I forgot to. But you can play the update at https://worldofsquares.org right now!
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #84 on: September 17, 2024, 06:36:36 PM » |
|
I updated the steam page screenshots and the picture on the website. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3147260https://worldofsquares.org/You can buy stash slot from Gumdir behind the building by Cubetown's stash. Quite a businesfellow.  I tried re-wording this, pre-emptive of whether steam will like this text  and the funny looking toppat is currently an un-earnable item;  I played the game earlier today and got some awesome drops; I'm really lucky. I got a pearl blade, mind vine, and wyrm whistle on my playthrough account on the live server. Mind vine is 1/100 from Dangerous Vines and insane!! I can now lift myself and other things anywhere. Shadows have been adjusted to be higher resolution. There's a master volume control in settings. You can now wear animal ears while a morph to override
|
|
« Last Edit: September 17, 2024, 06:47:02 PM by vitalash »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #85 on: September 18, 2024, 04:36:59 PM » |
|
I'm taking a few days off of World of Squares because I had an urgent idea for an email service I could program. One that shouldn't take long to implement but provide a lot of value. I've been programming that today.
World of Squares is still under steam review; I hope it goes well.
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
nathy after dark
|
 |
« Reply #86 on: September 18, 2024, 05:57:33 PM » |
|
World of Squares is still under steam review; I hope it goes well.
Good luck! I hope so too!
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #87 on: September 20, 2024, 05:16:05 PM » |
|
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3147260/World_of_Squares/World of Squares is now on steam! I'm going back to work on it after this 3 day break; what was I doing in these 3 days? ...Implementing my prototype of Mailbouncer; Make spammers pay you to send emails! It's good enough for me to stop working on it now. https://mailbouncer.org/Good luck! I hope so too!
thanks! It feels good that it went through 
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #88 on: September 21, 2024, 04:36:48 PM » |
|
Game updated! Play the updates here https://worldofsquares.org/  I find Gambo's sprites I drew cute.  - Added Averyware lens, craftable at the Oracle Glass lens on the lava cliff - You can now place your pet in the Creche in Cubetown; across the street from the arena, at the second floor. They'll wander around happily and get to know the other pets. - Added Gambo the ladder operator (in the mine) - Added Gemcrusher at the smith in cubetown (for sapphire) - Fixed add-friend eye dropper - Fixed a bug where un-renewing a subscription while both Stripe and Steam were active would require you to restart to see your un-renewed plan - Dash spell is more immediate. Fixed going through walls - When the cursed bucket of sand is held by a pet, it spawns sand more slowly now. - Firefly jar now glows I was back at it today. It went well. I see nothing here as ground-breaking, but it's nice. There's the sort of change like when I added the particle system to the game (a whole simulation like falling sand), and then there's just massaging existing systems and playing within them.
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #89 on: September 22, 2024, 04:34:01 PM » |
|
 The winter area will like to have this music. I want to make a level editor. I've been learning why Goxel isn't amazing long-term. I did a lot of busywork today massaging the renderer into something I might be able to re-use, and I don't know if I even want to put the burden on the game that it should be "reusable." Maybe I'll undo that tomorrow. It's kind of dumb to burden the client code with being reusable. I just need to load textures and draw cubes. Having renderer-parity with the game would be nice, but I don't know what I'll do quite yet. Doing the "deep cleaning" comes to mind, but I'm also balancing that with making sure there's something even worth cleaning in the first place; making the pre-alpha fun. I added new cave ambience and a cave song. https://i.imgur.com/3gIsrf3.mp4
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #90 on: September 23, 2024, 04:27:16 PM » |
|
I added new winter aesthetics and a winter song (SIbelius) https://i.imgur.com/I1TtW0E.mp4I made the transparency compositing a little cleaner, though it's still in a pre-alpha standard of quality and will remain that way. The depth buffer in the water rendering is now scaled to the pixel render size after drawing, but there's some kind of issue with how the things align still (...and did I ever scale down the game's depth buffer??)  No level editor. I'd be spinning wheels. I'd be taking an excuse to not do the important stuff that will make this game good. I'd hire someone to make a level editor if I had a team and the budget. But as the one programmer, I shan't take resources away. If I did do one, as I said yesterday, I wouldn't burden the game's codebase by trying to combine renderers I can easily just include the common file and get the tile types and colors that way, and program replicated behavior; it's not much, and it's worth the less complexity. Easier to add more features with less code.
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #91 on: September 24, 2024, 04:14:47 PM » |
|
Today I didn't work very much at all on the game... I edited the map a bit, ideated on some concrete things, started adding some entities. Today I'd normally try to work up to 4 hours at night to ensure a habit of making meaningful progress, but I'm curious if I can go to bed earlier and see how that affects my brain. Mornings have been foggier than I'd like. But this is very very dangerous, because it's really a mental game more than actually reaching a limit of fatigue — I think this is a bad idea because I should make game dev a habit. That I use any available time for it. Today I won't do that, and I'll observe how that affects me, because perhaps it's under-sleeping that is slowing me down.
I never do drugs, but I read of one that puts our brain in an infantile sort of state. One that adults can use to rewire their brain and re-learn their sense of hearing for perfect pitch pitch, for instance. On a lighter scale, maybe reducing habits is tending towards an infantile state, and then one can decide whether they will become lazy or double down in a different way. I have no idea; these are just ideas I consider. The goal is not work life balance. The goal is to get stuff done!
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #92 on: September 25, 2024, 04:31:13 PM » |
|
Today I made additions to the map   I added the Winterflower. It takes 12 hours to grow in multiple stages (but much faster in this gif)   I started on the Ice Dungeon. This is a small raid-style multi-boss minigame that requires one winterflower to enter. You can do as many runs as you want until you die or leave. Then, you need another winterflower.  No functionality yet, just the palace. I'm going to make these cool multi-part doors that open and close. I'll probably do two bosses; because right now in pre-alpha, with me as the single developer, this game needs a variety more than it needs one big piece of content. This first one will involve dancing on a floor of freezing ice. 
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #93 on: September 26, 2024, 05:06:03 PM » |
|
Going to keep this post short because I want more time to better my skills. Animation and music tonight.  I released the latest update. A soft launch for the winter area; the raid dungeon is not completed, but there's something cool in the game now: Collars Put em on your friends, drag em around. You'll be the only one who can take the collar off. You can leash them and take them anywhere.   2024-09-26 - Added collars that your friends can put on you. (much easier to get on than off...) (NOTE: right now collar keys don't work, so you better hope whoever put on your collar is willing to take them off, until the next update.) - Added Collie in Cubetown Park who tells you about collars - Bug fix with crafting Collars are a social feature, so they're accessible in free-to-play.
|
|
« Last Edit: September 26, 2024, 05:13:46 PM by vitalash »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #94 on: September 27, 2024, 04:39:28 PM » |
|
I spent more time drawing and animating today. For the game, I investigated a bug with the steam invoice reports query time. It seems to be working now; before it was requesting YY-MM-DD 00-00-00, and now it does not. Handmade Hero (which I study from every morning https://guide.handmadehero.org/) has switched to 2-hour-long coding sessions and I'm not used to staying focused on his instruction for that long, so that's a bit of a change. (The switch was on day 350, I just finished day 351 today.) Right now, when I wake up, I'm not fully ready to work hard anymore (in the past week my energy has come in the evenings). This is maybe a habit. I think if I set concrete goals, it's easy for me to activate my hard-workingness. Like yesterday I said "Ill add collars today!" and I worked many hours to get it done. Things like that.
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #95 on: September 28, 2024, 05:00:33 PM » |
|
An easy path for me to working hard by habit is not clocking out early in the evening.  2024-09-28 - Adding Icicle Vindicalis boss to winter dungeon - Fixed NPCs wandering too far from spawn - Dash spell now damages melee instead of magic - Bug fixes for painting eye-dropper
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #96 on: September 29, 2024, 04:43:30 PM » |
|
I worked on the raids dungeon map a bit. I investigated an issue with memory on the server. Appeared to be another process causing memory to page to disk or something? My game allocated out of the 4 gigs of the virtual machine pretty tightly... It's not like I do very many dynamic allocations; they're set in stone nearly at the start, except for a few small things.
I did not work hard today. I've been contenplating how I can actually place my effort to make something that reaches people and is meaningful.
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #97 on: September 30, 2024, 05:14:38 PM » |
|
I worked on the Gordo Pludo boss fight; the one after Icicle Vindicalis. The room will fill with Gordo Goo™ https://i.imgur.com/qtDLQnI.mp4I don't want players to feel the need to use a guide before this dungeon. So Icepal will help them. I drew this character knowing that I often tend towards round and cute. So I decided pointy will do. It's actually one of my favorite sprites in the game now:  I kept in mind that in Japanese culture, the eyes are seen as the window into the soul. I thought that was a fun idea. My favorite round sprite is Phawx looking down  Here's how big the codebase is 
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #98 on: October 01, 2024, 05:16:31 PM » |
|
I worked on the Winterdungeon today, and NPC dialog. https://i.imgur.com/OFCaoND.mp4Here's how I write dialog in my engine. It's a little bit annoying at times; I'm curious how it can be improved with minimal effort and complexity.  I'm thinking I'll need to look into advertising better. I'd make an updated trailer, and spend more than a day on it. All this development means nothing is nobody will play the game. YouTube ads could work, maybe? You need to do it from an account that gets recommendations similar to the people you want to advertise to. Also I hate ads on YouTube. I literally can't advertise to people like me, because I hate ads in general. I try to think about how I can bring value to someone's life. Thoughts? Or maybe I made fundamentally wrong choices that make this an uninteresting game even if it reaches people. In that case, having humility is necessary for future success. For now, it hasn't reached many people, so I don't know yet.
|
|
« Last Edit: October 01, 2024, 05:25:51 PM by vitalash »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
vitalash
Level 1
|
 |
« Reply #99 on: October 02, 2024, 05:20:38 PM » |
|
The Winterdungeon is a real thing now. Mechanics work, it's interesting to play. I got recordings for the game trailer. I'm planning on making a trailer for the game (Maybe I'll tap into my animation ability and add some hand-crafted love. Some nice paintings too? but i'm out of practice for painting...), and maybe I'll do some promotional art for this update. This was where I was at in painting, but it's been over a year and it's paged out of my brain. I don't practice color nor composition frequently anymore. It's interesting; it takes a brain that is willing to spend 8 hours doing the motions of painting. I haven't done that in a while! I presume I'll be able to.  Icepal loves to hear your stories from the raid. You'll know you told them everything you can when:  (avoiding spoilers so you can discover the dialog yourself) I'm going to add some more unique drops.  Today I added the Icicle spell. It is now better than the Fireball spell and best-in-class for magic. It does 2 damage and is faster to cast, but the projectile takes slightly longer to reach the target.  You can now remove collars 
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|