Week 22 Update

As is often the case, I've worked on several different parts of the game, the build & deploy pipeline, and the marketing.

Build & Deployment:

• Reviewed 1st-party Gradle documentation.
• Reviewed libgdx documentation on implementing Gradle workflow: Dependency management with Gradle and Improving workflow with Gradle.
• Reviewed several tutorials on implementing & modifying Gradle workflow.
• Reviewed documentation for JPackage, Packr, and several other Java package assemblers.
• Committed a couple days' work to updating Gradle workflow. As of writing (Saturday morning), I've added the "Badass Runtime" plugin which manages majority of JPackage configuration (so I don't have to), and the deployment runs (but crashes) as the asset folder isn't currently copying over. Still working on the how's and why's of this process. Hope to finish today or tomorrow.

Despite the documentation and the tutorials, I'm inexperienced with Gradle. Last year I used the basic Gradle wrapper provided by the libgdx project setup process, but I encountered multiple issues and had to "slim it down" to something I could better understand and maintain. I'm currently using a workflow held together by grit & spittle. My goal with this is eventually expand the workflow to include multiple-module support so I can separate distribution to different platforms into different projects.

Need to get github repository setup and source code pushed to maintain version control. Need to look more into Github Roadmap, so I can incorporate their "release notes" feature into the eventual Substack mailing list.

Development:

• Started networking code. Libgdx supports TCP/IP out of the box, but you have to implement your own UDP if you want to use it. There are lots of reasons for using UDP in online multiplayer, I won't cover them here. Thank you to Github user maklas (Artem Maklakov) for sharing your UDP implementation for libgdx. My implementation is heavily inspired by this.

Influence:

• Listening to lots of "Cyberpunk" music.
• Pride Month began!
• Wife and I watched Johnny Mnemonic (1995). It's been a while since either of us has seen it -- likely before we married (12+ years). It's a great flick. I would totally recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind the fact it's from the 90s.
• Watched Sharpe's Justice (1997) and Sharpe's Waterloo (1997). The Sharpe series is one of several media franchises that I've used as reference for designing game systems. In particular, Sharpe prompted me to review & expand my knowledge of military rank & organization. I learned what "makes" a regiment: generally being composed of recruits from the same geographical area, and how to count and organize batteries, battalions, and squadrons. There is a LOT to learn on the subject.

Since I finished Sharpe, I've been looking for another media franchise to watch as a source of ongoing inspiration. I learned the author of the Sharpe series did another historical series around the foundation of England, and that you can stream an adaptation on Netflix: The Last Kingdom. Wife and I watched the first episode together and I'm looking forward to the next one!

Marketing:

• Started devlog updates!
• Met with a rep from Spacemesh to talk tech and learn more about their API & implementation. Conversation went well, and they expressed an interest in meeting to chat again.
• Met with Don on Wednesday and we looked over an early build for the website.
• Picked up 80+ followers on Twitter this week.
• Updated Linktree, Itch.io profile & the Rogue Souls page.
• Uploaded some (mostly older) screencaps to Itch.io so there would be something to see on the Rogue Souls page.
• Updated the "marketing stack" to reflect what is available or currently in-progress.

Need to schedule another meeting with friend to look at Discord development. The server is "live" but it might as well be inactive considering there is nothing to talk about at the moment.