Organization and Clarity

This week started with the task of organization and focus. The Unity asset folder was a mess, I had one script doing all the work, and the game style was all over the place. Most importantly, I didn't really have a concrete theme that I wanted to portray with this game. Previously I only had a feeling I wanted to portray and for some reason it coincided with a train.

I started by creating folders for every type of asset in the asset folder. After moving everything to its place, it felt like a screen had been lifted. It was like watching a mucky, disturbed pool of water slowly settle and become clear. This only increased as I setup all my scripts in a namespace structure. This structure took most of the load off the central "Player" script. This script instead, became a hub for all the other scripts to communicate with and send data to. What once was a pile of spaghetti became a network of radial connections with "Player" at the center.

With this newfound clarity from organization I was able to realistically look at what kind of theme I am trying to convey. It was  "Momentum." With that, all aspects of the game shifted to propping up and enhancing this theme. Momentum is a product of mass and velocity. Therefore, since mass of the character is going to stay constant, building momentum means building velocity. Building velocity overtime suggests that the character needed to accelerate. After some testing and reworking, I came to a formula which allows the player to build up momentum exponentially, but only after they've entered the "advantage state" i.e.  successfully outplayed the opponent in neutral.

While the momentum concept still needs work and tuning to keep it fun and fair, its good to have a theme to work towards. The mecha theme has also been dropped, as it didn't really click with me. I'm still working on the visual theme, but that will come soon I'm sure.

Clarity is powerful. Strive for it.