Over the weekend I got to fiddling with the shadow code some more, and turned to my old friend the CAD menu to do an experiment. It was posited that maybe, the code wasn’t the problem, the processor was simply too slow. Maybe the code as it is, is too big and bloated from something to work on a normal system with normal system resources. So I went ahead and opened the little bastard up and let it run and it took 95-100% of my processor resources to run. A giant overflow of want that the bounty of my not-slow laptop could not provide. So clearly, the basic structure of the code is flawed. I’ll try to think of something else.
While I tried thinking of exactly that something else, I got to dealing with some of the little coded pieces that need doing. So I started finishing off the Perfect Mode features. So now, if at any point you happen to have more than 1 life in perfect mode, you instead only have 1. That way my doll code all works still and I don’t have to add little exceptions to every single scripted bit. It also kicks you out to the front menu if you die and doesn’t offer a continue option. I bashed that for the better part of 15 minutes before finding that it was the pause menu itself that was trying to be helpful when I didn’t want it to be. Either way, the base of the Perfect Mode is all done. It needs the little polished bits like stat tracking and things like that, but that’ll come when I build those things for the rest of the game. In the meantime, I’m confident it gets a great big “Done” stamp.
I’m finding the little pieces all coming together to be great. It’s not the epic battle that often comes with doing assets and codes. It’s a subtle groove that carries me along. A bit here, a script there and then whole delicious chunks of game just are. Nuggets of progress to enjoy on an almost daily basis. Really quite yummy.
– It’s not all sweet cookie code, the front end has gone all stupid again. First, it wouldn’t launch the game loop. I would tell it, “Let’s run the game! It’ll be fun!” to which it would sardonically reply (through it’s actions) “Yes, that would be fun. It really would be.” Leaving me feeling like a rube for even suggesting.
So I made a little change to the code to put the Launch Sequence in more places. Now, it doesn’t load correctly. Start it up, and it works. Quit out or die out, and start again, it doesn’t load right, keeps you in the same place and usually kills you.
Or if you go into the Chapter Select, and the back out to the Front Menu, it launches prematurely (I’ve told it that it happens to every bit of code sometimes).
Something is rotten here, but thankfully I know that it did work once. My new changes clearly the issue. I just need to fix it, but not well enough to recreate the original problem.
– Finally, I think we missed our deadline of 11-1. Yep, we sure did. The odd thing was, I didn’t even notice as we sailed on by, too engrossed in the progress we’re making. The slow brew in a magic cauldron.