60 (ish) weeks of iteration on a vague but powerful notion that will not leave me alone. Notes also.
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サバキ
APRIL
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A. 04.07 DELCIOUS VITAMIN
MARCH
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A. 03.04 The more complex interaction is working complete now and I’m glad I did it, but could not be more ready to get away from code, and these oranges and most of all, these terrible little fish who refused, when the finish was only breath away, to eat the oranges in a satisfactory “game” way for 10 full hours today. This is the real reason I’m pescatarian.
// STRAYS: Incomprehensible dreams about numbers and a HOT HOT HOT sale on a huge bottle of very bad wine.
B. 03.10 …and then I rewrote the entire thing again. Now I’m actually happy with the way these fish work; particularly the little shadows which linger for 500 frames after the fish submerges and the animation resets. This provides, at random intervals, some indication of where a fish is more likely to emerge and an accompanying sense that you are ‘learning’ the game; when the base probability of landing a fruit is still at best 1/4. Next up this week, transitioning back to the physical. But first the last few missing features. +NOTES
// STRAYS: Esos - a city forming a ring around and internal wilderness.
C. 03.17 The game has all of its features now with temp art. Struggled a bit with trying to get some kind of serial communication out of the game into the test rig and eventually compromised with an Arduino library that allows the board to mount as a generic usb midi device. So every component now communicates. Experienced some despair toward the end of the week. More on that in: +NOTES
I’m going to spend the week only working on the visual component.
D. 03.26 Still working on the final art. It is, of course, going to take about twice as long as I initially suspected. But, so be it.
FEBRUARY
02
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B. 02.11 Simulating a lighter let me test a few things at once; every part of the interface and a frame-specific interaction approach to the game design. One button depresses the flint wheel and plays a spark animation when the button is released. The second button opens the valve, which drains the fuel level. If the third frame of the spark animation is displayed while the lever is depressed and fuel > frame 0, the fire animation and light reflection overlay play. Added ‘TANTALUS’ to the lighter body after completing the rising and falling fluid animation. +NOTES
A. 02.03 Finished up the first iteration of the test rig. Two buttons, small monitor and a usb interface. The Arduino is there for interactivity in the opposite direction, from game events out to the interface, but this will come a little later. Now to design some kind of basic test to establish the beginning of the next loop.
// STRAYS: Book of the New Sun; many many cold and rainy days
C. 02.18 Was having some trouble mid week deciding on a direction. Finally decided to just start drawing and develop a mechanic from whatever I drew first. The image of a kneeling Tukulti-Niruta pointing to an empty throne has been flittering through my thought for weeks so I drew three empty thrones (sideways brackets) and filled them with glyphs. A colorful waterfall of thrones into which symbols can be placed immediately suggested itself. Spent most of the time this week on understanding how to implement and manage time.
// STRAYS: Swapped studio space with Mrs. Skunkwork.
D. 02.25 With time well and truly sorted in the first couple days of the week I spent the rest of the time finishing the interaction. Created this multi array buffer system for loading then sorting down the central array. Looking forward to moving back into graphics and building physical modules but think this needs another week of tweaking now that a more complex interaction is working well. Could not however, resist a brief mostly relevant detour into Moiré beer sign mesmer-tech.
// STRAYS: the last of winter is the worst
DECEMBER
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A. 12.03 Caught up with CAD then fell behind on making the parts over the weekend but did manage these hinges. Revised the design for the foot-plate to account for features added to the other components. Will be producing parts most nights this week.
// STRAYS: Friday night in America: Shed big warm globby tears at least four times during Godzilla, then went to a shitty metal show and had a great drunk time.
NOVEMBER
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A. 11.12 Settled on a modular approach for the foreseeable. Built a platform with t-track mounts in the base and cable access/support mounts on the side. Now for some modules….
// STRAYS: Shoreline Paradox; Understanding time better with age; a distinct thing, with its own nature and qualities. +NOTES
B. 11.19 Setting tempo/scale. Started work on two modules, then realized I need to go even slower, creating a catalogue of interchangeable parts, or I'll be repeating work in every module. Began working on parts list and designs, and got distracted brushing up on pixel art.
Enjoyed very much animating these two walk cycles into pixel art versions of the kids from Dutch Blitz cards. Will attempt to keep this peculiar little detour within limits but already feeling the temptation to print animated cards.
// STRAYS: Dutch Blitz
C. DIA DE LOS TURKEY Finished a VER.1 of a universal base plate for modules. Feeling more confident that building a parts list is the right path.
// STRAYS: In an early morning dream, I was wrapped warmly in a thick and rough woven wool blanket, sitting in a wooden chair set atop an enormous obsidian plane -with dark all around. A cold fine rain was falling and my legs and feet were bare. In front of me to one side, a featureless pillar of pure silver stood about 4 feet tall, shining like the moon.
D. 11.26 Took a self guided tour through cable lacing with mrs. skunkwork who was a natural; then did my best to catch up to her the next day. Cable managements a sticky issue that’s fun to ignore until it kills everything so I feel better having chosen to address it early and attempted to do so somewhat elegantly. Looked at Air, Sea and Space standards -auditioned all of them and settled on a hybrid. The starting and ending knots are the aircraft standard hitch, finished in the US Navy style. The running knots between are the delicious NASA standard. Work on modules proceeds apace in CAD but likely wont be ready for the mill for another week.
// STRAYS: “Bop and Gloom. There's more than one pipe type. There's more than one claw y'all.”
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