Week 23 Update

This last week has been focused almost entirely on version control and the build & deploy pipeline.

Build & Deployment:

• Migrated the "minimum viable code," including Umple templates, to the new project folder.
• Got the code uploaded to Github repository (currently set to private).
• Spent most of the week working on Gradle. Fixed workflow issues, fixed bugs. Fixed folder structure, fixed dependencies. Got JPackage and a Windows-only distribution working. Now I just need to get the "interactive" parts of the game functional. May be another few days for that.

Development:

• Bug fixes in service to Gradle, Github, and the release.

Influence:

• Watched a few more episodes of The Last Kingdom. Think I'm on S1E4 now. Looking forward to some more shenanigans from Alfred & Co. now that he's king. Comparing this series directly to Sharpe, I find that I'm missing the humor and friendships e.g. Pat Harper. The show does have humor, it's just more somber than I would prefer.
• Forgot to mention last week that I've been replaying Borderlands 3 as the Beast Master. I just opened the Vault on Eden-6 and beat the boss fight. I feel the "loot" on this playthrough is kind of ridiculous. I have all-orange gear with the exception of mods (grenade, shield, class) that are on a slow-rotation through purples and blues and oranges as upgrades become necessary.

Borderlands 3 is... not a very good game. I mean, it plays fine I guess. But it feels like a solid "middle tier" game experience. The characters mostly suck, the story mostly sucks, the environments are cool I guess, the fights are mostly fine but repetitive. The gear is boring. Classes are pretty boring - mostly their skills boil down to "plusses" to one stat or another. Doesn't feel good to level up.

In this playthrough, I was aware that many of the characters were drawn from the "Tales" series of visual novels, and I'm just... I don't know. Disappointed. I hated most of the new characters on my first playthrough, and knowing that they had actually been created and developed prior to B3 is just that much more a "fail." I feel like the story here is just baggage. Like in the first game.

Oh, and the gun manufacturers are super weird now. Like, the only weapons I consistently use are Dahl and Jakobs because they are the most "conventional" firearms. I hate the gimmicks of the other mfgs. I sometimes have use for a Tediore or a Maliwan, sometimes a Torgue. Vladof "bullet hoses" were good in B2... not so much here. I hate Atlas "smart bullets." So distracting.

Marketing: 

• This is the second of two devlogs!
• My collaborator Don and I reviewed content & design for the forthcoming website. We also discussed taking the game open source, and agreed to do so -- not with the commercial release as originally planned -- but as soon as we have a sort of "minimum viable press release." This will be "soon," though it's nigh-impossible to give an exact date right now.
• Picked up 90+ followers on Twitter this week, and broke 1k! Finally picking up some more gamedev mutuals.