A long and hard day at the end of a long and hard week. My job for today was, first to fix an alt-tab bug in Fallout Velocity, that was done by 9am, then to rework the Bool graphics, reorder and retexture the objects, then fix the man little bugs and niggles in the main program. This I have managed.
At 11am I felt pretty exhausted, actually dizzy and unable to concentrate. This constant mental work can be punishing and stressful, and I put my symptoms down to this. The job of creating the textures was confusing at first, I needed to work out what was where in the original textures, and where things should go. In this version, the order is crucial, so I had to divide things up.
In the afternoon I had to fix the little niggles and problems evident in the game. First, some letters used to vanish. This was due to old and invalid pointers to things like the cueball or the player's bats, objects which had since been destroyed. Fixing this was a matter of clearing the pointers, complete with relevant NULL checks whenever those objects were actually used. The menu had a problem with the camera because I'd got the storing and recalling options from the menu mixed up.
Then I had to fix up the high score entry and its display, and finally the screen fades. The screen changes are not very elegant, and the camera just sits there when there's no cueball, but the game is just about where it was in v1.06, when I started, yet with a full 2024 engine update and all new graphics. It might be good enough to release even now, but it could do with more.
There is one thing it lacks, the particle effects, but those are easily added. Basically now it's a matter of upgrading what is there, not fixing. A good time to file it all as complete.
It's been a hard week, but feels productive even if there's nothing sellable to show for it yet.
I've heard that I've failed to get into the Cheshire Art Fair this year, which was disappointing. My focus hasn't been on painting for months, that art is at a nadir for me. I have no gallery or incentive to paint, though I feel that I can paint better than ever, and I am still full of art ideas. Ultimately, I'm only one person with limited time, and the work on games and music this year has been full to overwhelming, there's simply no room for painting. I'll get back into it when the time allows.
Oh for money! Then I could forget these games, publish them for free and move on to arts and improving the world culturally - so I'd like to believe. For now, games and music are my focus. I'll stop working on Bool now and get back to music tomorrow. I've reached a plateau where a few old games are ready to be updated, but I need a plan of what to add, what to update.
