I finally realized last night that while the gameplay and general idea of Nambug has greatly evolved I myself have not allowed my conception of it to do so. From its original open-world RPG, ‘Bug has morphed into some bizarre sandbox-‘artificial life’-sim. So! A few notes:
- First, I’ve scrapped all the work on Nambug except its overall flavor (kept safely tucked away in my mind, and on short GIFs here and on Twitter.) I know this is a massive statement to just chuck out into the universe, but it needed to be done, and to be said.
- This was done so I could rework it from the ground up without tripping over my archaic spaghetti code. I am reworking my data structures to prevent bottlenecks. Honestly, it’s also because I’ve just learned a ton since I started work, and it would be a more difficult undertaking reworking the code.
- I will be using an ECS methodology slammed into an OOP framework (with some λ sprinkled around where it makes sense.) It’ll make sense to me, anyway.
- I really want to lean into the AL space where I can. This may ultimately lead me down an ML path. Where it makes sense, I want emergent behavior, but only in a guided sense. If any AL/ML elements make the cut, it will be only where they meet two conditions => An element must add something to either the gameplay or world flavor && it had better make the game more interesting for me to play.
So yeah, it’s going to be good to realign my work with my conceptualization of the game and its world. I’m also working on a smaller project to help get some funding in my pocket and it’ll be built using the same core code as Nambug, so it’s not extra work (at least generally.) Another big element is Music, and I’ve been working on some new stuff for both games. I won’t write about it today, but soon. I’ve also been writing a little creative fiction every day and working in Blender a ton. This is a year to hone my skill. This is the year of the ‘Bug!
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