We're already at 10 entries! 🙀 I think it's coming along nicely so far. There's still lots to do, and I'm currently right in the details, so I'll probably post a roadmap in the next entry!

Anyway, I've been playing the current build for a bit, and a few things came up that I wanted to change.

1) I wanted to improve the way "free will" seekers were moving, by adding a delay. This resulted in a funny bug:

Because the new target got set every frame for half a second. XD I kinda liked it, but of course, I had to fix it.

I wanted it to "look ahead" and then go into the direction that it has chosen, but with a half second delay, so it was easier to catch.

2) I reduced the grid size by 2 on each side. The old game was 11 x 9 grid squares, now it was 23 x 13, and I think it was a noticeable difference when traversing through the field, everything took juuuuuuust a tiny bit longer. The new size is 21 x 11 now, not sure if I shouldn't reduce it even further. Good thing about the new change is that I will have space for UI stuff, like display hotkeys and buttons. In addition, I will make sure that the puzzles don't use the borders as much, that will also help.

In any case, I've refactored the code slightly so it is a lot easier to just change the size of the grid without having to adjust hardcoded values.

Comparison time! Old map:

New map:

3) I've had the idea for a while and I was already doing a similar effect in MelodyMaze, so I sat down to plan and code it. Here's the new wave for when a seeker explodes (which usually means "game over", but also for repair seekers):

I think it adds a bit of a dramatic effect to it! I initially wanted to add it to all explosions, but it was way too irritating.

4) This also was on my list for a while already: A targeting trail for seeker. This time I started with a sketch in Affinity Photo (I normally just do it directly in-engine, but I thought it would help this time with the algorithm):

Here's the first version in action, still was not done yet (the target cursor and some additional animations were missing):

And, after another day or two, here's the version with a new target animation. I made sure the arrows animate with a sine wave, so that it looks like it's pulsating. Also, the animator for the actual target cross can start an outgoing animation and then resumes the idle animation.

I like how it feels in-game, and I've made sure the little arrows use an object pool (to make sure they are only created once).

5) Also visible in the gif above - I redid the cursor! It was bugging me for a while now, so I had to change it. I think it looks pretty cool, what do you think? :D I've used a photo of a wrench to add some texture to it, but otherwise it's still using the old vector graphics.

6) Last, but not least, I finally imported all dialogue lines into the I2Localization plugin.

I was looking at having to copy/paste about 600 times, and having to manually change the associated cutscene number every time. Luckily, I can code a bit 😎, so I've made a little tool in javascript to easily convert all cutscene text into the new format:

(The textarea contains text directly from the flash code, below is the converted code with the IDs needed for the localization tool.)

And then it only took me about 10 minutes to copy and paste all of the text!

I still have to manually apply each line in the dialogue system. I don't think there's a good way around it, because I also have to set the mood image for each sentence. It's okay, I can do one cutscene per day or something like that.

I also did two smaller fixes: I fixed creators shooting projectiles while game is paused or level is complete, and clicking on a "free will seeker" now turns the grid square behind it.

But that concludes this devlog entry! As usual, let me know what you think! I never really know how technical I should get - if you want me to explain something in detail, I'd be happy to do so!

What's next?

• Keep remaking cutscenes and levels
• Menu / interface mockup

To be continued...