mity
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I'm still a dwarf and I'm still digging a hole.
🕑 Added 2020-07-26 22:48:06 +0000 UTCA pretty deep one.
Remember me saying our data for FET basically had the cohesion and structure of overcooked spaghetti? ...That's still mostly true, and will remain like that for awhile...
But I did manage to put the bulk of the files into a logical folder structure. It's a thing of beauty... When you're used to having to go on the equivalent of a camping trip when trying to find a specific file. It wasn't so bad for book 3 and book 4 files, but the first two books where pretty horrible in that regard.
I was playing with the idea of splitting things into a love/slave route, but since both routes of the same book make extensive use of the same files it was much simpler to have an overarching folder structure split into book 1, book 2 etc. And yes, that's something we didn't do right from the start.
Moving the files around wasn't that hard, but making sure the scripts could find them afterwards wasn't as straightforward. I could use some automated "search & replace" functionality for the bulk of the new folder paths, but there was also a lot I had to do manually for reasons(I don't want to bore you to death) which I won't go into here.
At first it was all about just making certain there was some logic behind where we are saving our stuff and I trying to do my best as to not molest everyone's savegames into oblivion.
Then I started to discover more and more things which could be done better, more efficiently. At first I wasn't going to touch those things because I still didn't want to break too many savegames. Then I started coming across more and more exceptions where I couldn't move the data without destroying savegames. When those exceptions started piling up, I finally just said... "Fuck it, I'm going scorched earth."
Not so much "scorched eath" as in it'll destroy all savegames, but I no longer take older savegames into account when changing things and now I'm just doing whatever is necessary to bring files into the fold.
Adding structure and putting things "where they belong" is strangely satisfying to my mind. It's not like I can't become bored doing it, but the satisfaction I feel afterwards is like scratching an itch. And it's so much easier to find stuff quickly now!
One of the things I also did is decouple background and foreground images. We combined those a lot during book 1 and 2 (and stopped doing that in the other books) Decoupling is nice because it decreases the size of our scripts and the script size is responsible for how fast FET loads. Whether you have to call a background once and can forget about it or have to call it for every frame, makes a difference. I still have a few of those combination files, but 99% of it is gone.
Most of that was done automatically but it caused many, maaany glitches. I think most of my time has been spent tracking down those by playing both routes of the first two books and fixing whatever got broken.
It was fun to see old scenes like the one where you'd get Shady some help to expand his business
I think I've fixed all the background/foreground glitches. I say "I think" because while diving into the scripts of book 2 I found a scene which I had forgotten and not unlocked during the play through so there might be more of those.
While doing that I noticed some scenes can be done in a far more efficient way. They'd look and play the same, but with 75% less script. I'm hoping (and expecting) once I'm done with all the changes I want to make, it'll result in a faster bootup time for FET.
I realize FET's bootup speed isn't that important since you do it once and afterwards it's not much of a problem, but it's just a personal annoyance which will only keep growing with the addition of book 4's love route and the final chapter, so I wanted to make a real effort to keep it at least as limited as much as possible. I'm guessing it's mostly me indulging myself, but I do think it'll be worth it in the long run.
I'm not expecting to have all the things I want to change finished anytime soon. I keep discovering new stuff which can be done better. This rabbit hole goes deep! However I also can't just ignore what I'm supposed to be doing, which is drawing the stuff for the new route!
I had already sent 99% of the files to the coder so it's not like he couldn't start work on it, but there was still some temp art among it and it's nicer to work with drawings which don't look like they've been drawn on toilet paper with crayons so I'm happy to say I'm getting close to finalizing most of those temp images.
I better, because I've set myself a deadline. Once August has arrived I'll need to start working on the images for the second love route build.
I'm on track for that, and I'll just keep fixing up older script stuff to make FET's insides all nice and shiny. But it'll be more of a side thing from now on, happening in the background.
I went really hardcore these last weeks and it has given me a good idea of how much time and effort it will take to update everything I want. A long time. So we'll keep using the messy version for now, which means your savegames are still safe(ish).
It'd be nice if we can eventually have a 1.0 version with all the script changes at once so any savegame incompatibility happens just once.
There are some extra benefits to me doing this now. For example, I found an old bug from way back during the slave route for book 2 when fighting earthbenders together with Azula so that's at least going to be fixed in the "messy" version.
Since I've been doing a lot of typing I noticed the little "braille" ridges on my F and J keys have slowly eroded into nothingness. It's surprising how much I miss those little bumps when it comes to guiding my fingers to the right keys! A matter of not appreciating something until it's not (or hardly) there anymore.
Oh and the coder got pretty sick for a short while and even went to get himself checked out for covid since he was feeling so bad. He's better again and it turned out to be a normal flu. Longtime patrons of ours will know cbob has a habit of picking up whatever virus is going around so I was pretty much already convinced he had corona. Knowing him he's going to get it sometime sooner or later anyway though :/ !
But right now he's ready to rock again, which is good, because the calendar keeps shedding days like's hairs on a dog. Which is a lot! Hmm... crap. I made myself sad just now.
Well, whatever! I've been having a strange sort of "on the spectrum" kind of fun doing nothing but digging into our files, but it's time for me to get out of that hole and focus on other important stuff which is also fun.
And for everyone new here. Since we're working on the start of a new route, a new build is still at least a month away! That's all for now, going to bed and get myself some sleep!
Cheers!
Comments
what do i do in the tunnel when it says i hear odd sounds like muffled crying
Kenosha Bonisha
What do i do after i become general in love route. I did all the tower stuff but azulas door is still locked
Abagofbabies
Nice love to hear it.
alright, don't force it, otherwise it won't come as good. Love you man
MITY
Ah Tenzin's sister, yes she'll definitely make an appearance.
Bummer! :-D
Abagofbabies
Just randomly remembered that girl named Kya that was in the legend of korra and was curious if she able to be used in this game or if she shows up to late in the show to be put in
Yalgor
i get that. I know what it''s like putting in a great deal of effort for what seems so small a benefit. you may not see the result of the hard work you are putting in rn, but you'll DEFINITELY see it in the later to last stages of the game. what took you 20 seconds to do before will now take 5. it may seem really small, but that small number builds up, and you'll find yourself finishing this game sooner than you think.
Dubsington
Yep! And when the game is 100% done and you've moved on to your next project, people are going to clamor to have the source code released so they can make mods and improvements. You'll be horrified by the idea (because every new programmer thinks, correctly, that their code sucks), but adding some comments and such means that if you grant your fans that gift at least the modders will have a fighting chance of doing a good job.
MITY
Oh, I have absolutely zero objections whenever cd projekt says they need more time. Waaay back while playing the first witcher game I enjoyed it a lot and I even read some of the books because of their games... but I'm going off on a tangent. Anyway we're less forgiving of ourselves, but we do want to do the best we can and nothing can be done without time so we'll just have to begrudgingly accept that. It's just annoying to do a lot of work and basically have nothing to show for it.
MITY
cbob is feeling fine again, no worries! It's just that he has this weird anti superpower of attracting virii. I'm truly surprised he hasn't picked up covid yet.
MITY
Refactoring... hmmm, well I learned a new word today! And yeah I can immediately see what you mean. At first I was like "I'll do this for a few hours a day and spend the rest of the day drawing." But I quickly found out it was difficult to switch between different jobs. Might be a personal thing but I prefer spending the entire day refactoring instead of doing other things on the side. I've also started to add more comments etc. It's a hell of a job, but whenever I remove a nested if structure (five layers deep!! Oh the horror!!) I feel a bit better : ) But it's a lot of work because the coder did some really funky stuff throughout and wasn't really in the habit of adding comments. Makes it extra satisfying whenever I can really improve something though.
MITY
Katara's relation is kind of the anchor throughout all of it. You'll see more of her during book 4's love, but yeah book 1 is a product of what we were able to do at that time and if we have some creative energy left at the end we might revisit that part. Not making promises, but it wouldn't be the first time we'd be redoing parts of book 1.
MITY
Lol sure, but he was pretty much coerced into that "relation" so I'm going to give him a pass on that : )
MITY
Yep, that extra little effort at the beginning of things (if you know what to look out for) can save yourself a mountain of headache later on.
MITY
Good luck is always nice to have. That and an olympic sized pool with elbow grease : )
MITY
*raze mode on!*
MITY
Lol, I can sorta see why. Still, that grin makes would give me a very confused boner. Still maybe something for when we're done with Fet.
MITY
I think you can fill a few hours with those : )
Yalgor
i just wanna say, even without your updates, I've noticed, and I'm sure a ton of other people have too. this is one of those things people in the gaming world are happier to hear today. It's the same reason we're not disappointed, in fact some of us actually happy, that Cyberpunk 2077 was delayed. You're taking your time and making things better. I've 100% noticed the game running smoother, opening faster, and the polish on older chapters. Take your time, and make sure you get as much as you can now, so there is less to do later, and less worry that you missed something, or that the game is incomplete. as Dubsington said, this is normal, and I'm happy that you've actually been acknowledging it to us rather than just getting it done and moving forward. telling us helps ya vent the frustration of the process, and lets us know you 're still doing really good work. keep up the great work! stay safe, and I hope everyone gets better.
Make sure you guys stay safe. Hope Cbob gets better soon, keep up the great work
Dubsington
What you're doing is known in software world as "refactoring". You're not exactly rewriting the code, you're just reorganizing it, fixing some bugs, and giving it a good dusting & cleaning (which maybe involves a *little* rewriting) so that the maintainer's quality-of-life sucks less and the app runs better. This is a good thing. It also requires loading a lot of contextual knowledge into your head; tracing old, badly-written code is a hell of a difficult thing to do. Once you stop doing this for a while you will NOT be able to easily restart the process. I suggest you keep up this work as long as you can stand it, and if a release is delayed then so be it. You don't want to regret passing on opportunities to improve things.
Hey Mity, sorry if you have adressed this before, but I was wondering if you're planning to do a rework of the book 1 ? I was good but not as great as the other ones and kinda short. I also think the relationship with Katara is the most important and deserves a lot more attention. Thanks in advance
Good luck and thanks for the work! Btw... the Player kinda lied when he said "I wont leave till I had all anal" .. well he forgot the Paper Mask Ghost! :-D
Deonast
All good with you restruturing, a good opportunity for me to play the other routes this time around. Yes I get the need to fix and get things right. Pays off in the long run. I know when people don't do it the right way, like a colleague of mine who half arses things and it comes back to haunt me.
Mooney, Tyler A
Good luck and keep up the good work π
Evan Showalter
that is a FANTASTIC idea
Evan Showalter
im probably not gonna play again until the book 4 love route is finished and by then ill probably want to start the whole thing over anyway so do what you will with my current saves because ill probably never use them
Jukssuger
Definitely get some sleep, you need the rest. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in saying that I don't mind losing my save game and starting from book 1 again if a scene gallery gets added to the main menu (not that I know how difficult that may or may not be, just a suggestion). Half the reason anyone actually saves is just so we can access specific scenes anyway.
Wanted to do fem shady lady she was hot
NΓΆrther
It will be a long month, well I was supposed to re-watch first 2 Digimon seasons with Subs and then watch 4-6 before starting hacker's memory
