Spent today working on Firefly, now temporarily (permanently?) renamed to Flicker the Firefly. I changed the text system and the menu system, but this has taken almost all of the day. There's a new font, hi-res lens flares and a background to the title screen for the first time.
I could to more to tidy it. These early games used numbers rather than defines for everything, which makes them a lot harder to change or tweak. I could swap those, but the game now has everything the 2014 update (the previous most recent) had and more, in the engine. The gameplay is unchanged.
I rather thought this a weaker game, I'm not sure if it ever sold a single copy, but now I find it charming and with stronger potential than many of the others. It is something like a children's book or children's game, but it has character and feeling that the other games don't. It has a character I care about, and it looks beautiful. Perhaps this game, more than Bool or the other games, has potential. As with all of these games, I need to plan a remaster and remake.
I have a sore throat, which seems to be my larynx and throat muscles. At first I thought it was connected with the full and joyous day of singing on Tuesday. It might be, but many people there had coughs or colds, some persistent coughs over many weeks.
I had the idea that it would be good to have a 'keytar' for these open mics, because it would allow easier singing and performance while standing. It annoys me that, despite being around for 40 years, these keyboards haven't really taken off as instruments and there are only really two on offer now; a Korg which is close to a Microkorg with an arm, and a Roland which has tons of features and looks good except that it's huge, far too big, close to slinging a 5-octave full-size synth around one's neck. I can get a strap adaptor for the Reface, but it looks so ugly with them. The Microkorg has wooden sides, so I could, I thought, simply fit actual guitar strap buttons to that. I can't however, fit an arm. Just about nobody makes an external ribbon controller (or pitch controller, or modulation wheel) that can be used as a MIDI controller. It would be almost be easier to buy a £600 Keytar than buy a ribbon controller for the existing Microkorg!
Sunday now looks like 50% rain, as does the next 10 days. The mural business causes me great anxiety. I wish we could wait for a dry week. I'm wondering if dry weeks, or even dry days, ever happen! It seems to have rained every day this year so far. It is at least warmer, though.
