Improving Coding Skills

     One big thing that keeps popping up as I work is how much more organized I'll have to be for the next project. After every project I learn to prepare the next to take some concept into consideration when making connected scripts and folder hierarchies. Every code library is neater than the last and now that I've had practice with an RPG scale game's code, I can make a much more organized workspace.

     This is a big deal because Unicorn Training is currently a mess behind the scenes. Debugging is tedious because I have to alter every instance of copy/pasted code when I should have central scripts multiple objects can point to. I should have been more careful about the variable names and comments because now when I go to fix a script from 6 months ago I can't tell what all the pieces do.

     I had to Frankenstein a bunch of code together and patch on tons of fixes I never thought of. I will have a better start next time if I keep all these things in mind. In some ways my code is better than ever, but in others it's atrocious and needs to be improved. It's that constant drive to always do better.

Bug Hunt: Unicorn Training Treasure & Electric Gates

     Most of yesterday consisted of debugging as I tried to fix things that seemed to be working fine. The electric gate switching was failing to get rid of invisible walls because of how I haphazardly grouped the objects in the scene's hierarchy and some were even mislabeled as the opposite color. I had to go through each scene with electric gates and correct them.

    Once those were settled I tried to move to new things on the task list but ran into another bug that ate a few hours of the day. I wanted excess items to do nothing when picked out of chests. I wanted them to be placed back in chests originally, but with the mess I coded it'd create less bugs if I had it just say you have no room.

    For some reason it broke my TextMaster script after working on the previous 3 tests. All thanks to the way I use " @" as the line skipper. It was as if using two line skips was against the rules despite it not breaking anything moments ago. The problem was sloppily fixed by adding a random bunch of spaces and having the script cut them off for me when pushing the next word to the following page.

    I can breathe easy now that this nonsense is behind me. It's Columbus Day so my early class is cancelled for the day which will give me an extra hour of gamedev before going back to the grind. I want the dungeon selector done before Friday.

Unicorn Training: Enemy Behavior & Electric Gates

     Saturdays are my day off so I didn't get much done lately. What I was able to do after class on Friday was code how enemies behave in the overworld (basically don't shoot and only move horizontally instead of roam) and make certain electric gates alternate between yellow and blue automatically. It's Sunday now which is a day completely dedicated to gamedev so lot's of progress is sure to be made by bedtime. I want to be as close to the finish line as possible by the end of the upcoming 3-day weekend.

Status Report #59 (Prefabs Placed & Live Spriting Session)

     This week's distractions include Smash Bros, a school mini-carnival (free for students), and tons of incredibly frustrating homework. Despite it all I made tons of progress with Unicorn Training and have a world full of enemies and items! Next week is a 3-day weekend too, so I'll have tons of dev time then. I might even get everything but music done!

Look at this week in review below!