"Congealed, thought becomes art. Material things become stained with belief, slowly eroding away the beauty of oblivion until everything becomes cursed with meaning."

• Soaked Tails Trail Across The Soil flavour text

The Games Foxes Play

(complete source code - mirror | view all previous posts | play 0.4.3 online in browser on itch.io! (very old))

I tried to pull off some awesome stunt involving a whole portal network leading to different pocket dimensions, but quickly entered rage mode as a mega-ton of strange glitches and conflicts with old code from 1 year ago started to rain down on me. And JavaScript's undefined-null-NaN's funhouse was not helping. After doing my best to dismiss the ever-invasive thoughts of "wipe the entire thing and restart with a new programming language", I came to the following conclusion:

Another Great Purge is needed.

I have been ruthlessly wiping out codeblock after codeblock of ancient work from back when I didn't even know how to use Git. It feels a little sad to see all those hours going down the drain, but the knowledge I acquired getting here will not be taken away from me.

Development must halt for now as I refactor everything and purge the weak. It is hard to understate how fantastic it feels to go from this crime against computing to this work of art.

Still, there were some minor gameplay tweaks. For example, to encourage more interesting interactions "summoning"-type Axioms have been changed to clone existing creatures instead. This means that just running around and spamming the same old goon (boring) is no longer possible. Instead, one must use the force of the enemy against itself, like a martial artist would.

"In a world as connected as ours, quarantine and isolation are but distant memories. Weaker souls remain dazed in place, hypnotized by the flow of discourse, entertainment and strife burning their neurons to a crisp."

• Signals Sever the Skies flavour text

The Games Foxes Play

(complete source code - mirror | view all previous posts | play 0.4.3 online in browser on itch.io!)

Long time no see! This post will get buried, but I want to indicate that I have not been devoured by some terrifying eldritch entity and am, in fact, still alive. I haven't stopped. Updates and bugfixes have been trickling down, at a slow yet steady pace over the last few weeks.

I am currently doing a major UI rework. Each entity can now be individually inspected, revealing the very programming that makes them tick. There's so many keywords in these descriptions - I think the most gloriously horrible one is "When an Axiom of this Axiom's Axiom-type Data is Pulsed, Pulse this Axiom, keeping the same Targets."

I'll obviously add some "Slay the Spire"-style vignettes to describe what each keyword means (what in an Axiom?). But a part of me is kind of amused by how arcane all of these sound. Considering that this "programming" is themed as being "forbidden knowledge" and that the player would be using "premade" Souls with much clearer, more traditional descriptions early on, it might be interesting to keep this kind of wording just as a puzzle of sorts.

A new chapter in my life has began, and it seems every single day has its own load of disturbances. I already have made the choice to quit DCSS seriously for now to free up more time, but the degree of freedom keep getting narrower and narrower. I believe a strict schedule will be necessary, with tighter regulation especially on that pesky little screen in my pocket that keeps hypnotizing me when I look at it for too long.