December 2019 In Review

  • Wed Jan 01 2020 10:40:26 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
  • Updates

Retrospective of the last month.

This month was less productive than normal due to the holidays, but I was still able to get quite a few things done both with Art, Controllers, and doing some work in c++, python, and javascript. You can view some of the code publically on GitHub

A lot of this work doesn't lend itself well to screenshots and flashy posts, but I should still take the time to make entries here. A lot of my work is still siting in some fairly dense draft posts, which I need to cleanup and publish to this site.

Coding

I spent most of December brushing off the dust and open sourcing several of my non Unity projects, specifically focusing on C++, Python 3, and JavaScript. There is quite a bit of cleanup still to do, and while this work isn't quite as sexy or interesting it can be both satisfying and worthwhile.

I did quite a bit of work on the Action RPG Controller, inspired by the release of a new Path of Exile League.

Aside from the movement and controls, I also did some work on various ARPG systems such as equipment, and skills.

I also spent time on a really basic FPS controller, I've built several of these so it didn't take very long. My favorite part was doing the art and animations.

I spent several weeks updating my C++ projects, mainly evaluating several build systems and project configuration options. I spent a week porting over a portion of one of my larger code bases into Meson build system, until deciding to stick with CMake. I have a draft of a post talking about it, but I haven't finished it (it keeps devolving into a pros and cons comparison that I'm desperately trying to avoid).

I spent some time experimenting with replacing my shell scripting currently done in Python to NodeJS. I ported my dependency management tool deps and tried it out, but I think I'm going to stick with Python for now, specifically for the Windows support. (I have another draft on this which I haven't finished yet). Both versions can be found on github.

I also made a lot of improvements to my project template engine progen. Which makes it a lot easier for me to build quick examples and experiments in various languages. I need to put a little more work into my stripped down c++ engine so I can use it for some light weight projects when I'm in not in the mood to do JavaScript or Unity.

Lastly, I have been doing the same with my JavaScript projects and templates. These are a little bit harder - historically JavaScript best practices change so frequently it's hard to keep up, however, I've noticed an interesting thing going over my 8 month old projects: not much has changed!

So it was just a matter of updating, upgrading, and applying some lessons I've learned over the past half year or so. I'm very happy with the results, expect some interesting JavaScript projects to be making an appearance here in January.

Art

I spent some more time refining my modelling and skinning projects, completing my cleanest character mesh to date.

I also spent some time practicing my sketing, still a long way to go.

Conclusion

It's been a lot of fun the past two months, shaking off the rust and cleaning up my repositories. I think it's time for me to attempt a little game jam based on some of the work I've done this far! I definitely want to commit to the next Ludem Dare (46) on April 17, but I think I should do a short personal project before then.