Man, it's been months since I blogged! As usual. I don't know, it's hard. I just like to plug away. Time spent telling people what I'm doing feels like a waste, even though I do like to talk about my work. I'll tell you this: if you remind me in the discord every week or so that I should blog, I'll do it. Most of the time. So lemme know when new updates are needed!
But here's the deets on
Broken Build Simulator! I've finished every major system but one. Or at least I think so - my last blog post said that hacking was the last major system, and the system I'm referring to now is another one I added since then... Challenges! Oh and by the way, this doesn't mean I'm nearly done - there is only any content at all for the tutorial mode, and 20 Minutes Till Lunch. There are still 6 other game modes, with their attendant heroes, weapons, and abilities to be added. It's a LOT, but I keep finding myself thinking "that'll just be fun to do, I better get this hard work out of the way". I should probably alternate between creating content and systems.
First of all, there's Difficulty which is not terribly interesting: you can pick from Tier I to Tier V (for now at least), which boosts enemy life and damage, and earns you more metametacurrency as a reward. This is needed because of metaprogress you gain which would make the game absolutely trivial if you couldn't raise the challenge.
Then the new system is Challenges. You'll have to unlock them, but the core idea is that in addition to your chosen difficulty setting, you can choose from a selection of randomly-generated Challenges, which cost metametacurrency to attempt, but of course award even more metametacurrency if you manage to win while using them. So they're a gamble. And they're more fun and interesting than Difficulty - they have 4 mods each, some of which make the game easier, but most of which make it harder. There is a 'value' to each mod - positive values for ones that make it harder, negative values to ones that make it easier. All Challenges have a total positive value, because if they made the game easier overall, they wouldn't be a challenge. But other than that restriction, any mods can be combined. So you could end up with a 5-point nightmare scenario coupled with 3 mods (-1 point each) that make it easier, for a +2 challenge overall. Obviously, balancing the values of these mods will be tricky, but for the most part, meh, whatever. It is what it is, it's a crazy random game and you'll get what you get and you'll like it! Each mod is actually a script, so they can do anything, they won't just be more life and damage.
But besides the titular pun, progress really is a challenge with this game. I think primarily that's my old age kicking in, and the fact that I'll never recover from the burnout of the game that shall not be named. I'm just very slow now. Every day, if I get some solid chunk done, like managing to make it print a number on the screen, or draw a square, I sit back and say, "I deserve a break!" which is not how it was in my fiery youth. Or if I start the day and have to make a phone call or talk to an electrician, I say, "Well, I definitely need to recover from that experience, no work!" And then they also rather ruthlessly released Diablo IV without even asking me. That's how I spend the aforementioned breaks nowadays. So just letting you know - I am still consistently working on this game, and yet I am still very far from finishing and it feels like it will never end. It's a Tier 4, 7-skull, challenge. I just need to unlock more metaprogress so I get stronger to beat it.
