The Project is Still Going

I guess I settled on doing these devlogs biweekly, except people can't decide on whether that means "twice per week" or "every second week". Is there a better word for it that also doesn't sound so academic it makes people fall asleep?

Anyway, I digress; you're here for the development news! Last time, I admitted to basically doing no game content work and only fiddling with systems, two weeks later some of that groundwork is finally paying off. I've started adding new weapons and accessories; there's now support for thrown and shot weapons to flesh out the melee weapon roster with some short-range options. You can pick up ninja-themed stuff in Lake Slushi and clown-themed stuff in the newly added circus.

Fun fact: the menu graphic used for the equipped weapon has Muri's hand as a reference so I get the alignment right when I add new weapons here, but this also means I can draw different hand positions for each weapon - e.g. holding the shuriken between two fingers in that cool ninja pose. The stuff currently in the game doesn't really use this, but expect seeing it a bit more as I start adding more esoteric weapons in the future!

Longer-range weapons will be mostly balanced out by spending durability even if you miss (the game displays it as "ammo" and changes the wording of durability popups, but it's the same system under the hood), and the animation where you throw/fire them adds a delay that makes them surprisingly tricky to aim compared to spells which are just literally instant. I didn't realize how big this impact was gonna be but I'll pretend it was totally intentional going forward!

As part of this work I also moved some stuff around to get rid of duplicated code - space melee and regular melee aren't two giant copies anymore, the melee logic is now a reusable behavior package - and this also meant it was easy to add in an underwater melee state! (Though most weapons don't work underwater still, you'll need something water-themed like the cutlass or shark plushie)

There's still stuff missing here which I'll add in later, most notably special effects - having a torch will light up dark areas and let you set enemies on fire, for instance. Ideally I'd want every weapon to have SOMETHING unique about it so it never becomes a question about which number is bigger - just like with the accessories.

Levels!

Level-wise I've been jumping between a bunch of different levels without really finishing any one of them:

• Short Desert which I had already started working on last time, which is now essentially finished - I'm not going to spoil the gimmick for this one.
• City of the Ancients, the giant main level for Nugget Mines, which introduces a mechanic where you can pick up temporary powerup spells and use them to solve puzzles (or hit enemies really hard). This one is another four-burger level so it's gonna take some time to fully finish, and it's even more interconnected and labyrinthine than the Bread Ruins main level.
  
• Shattered Citadel, a level split in two halves which are accessed from different parts of the Nexus (this one has some Big Lore going on which you'll be introduced to via a recurring NPC). It's also gonna have a lot of "outside the box thinking", with a more outdoorsy feel than the previous levels... which means no walls at the edges of the level... (but also no floor, so mind the gap!)
  

This one also has taken a lot of work getting systems up and running for - like music that can dynamically change between different tracks (so the snow, desert and [REDACTED] sides have different versions of the level theme), puzzles that synchronize both sides, etc. Also two versions of each new asset, since it has two different color schemes - maybe that was a mistake. The effort-to-benefit ratio feels a bit skewed in the uncaring universe's favor right now but I'm gonna use that as an excuse to double down and make it the most elaborate level in the game!! And really make all that effort worth it!!!

• Last and least, Lever Action. I still regret making the library puzzle in Bread Main so ridiculously complicated so there's now a mini-level giving you a more gentle introduction to colored switches which could theoretically be accessed before going there. I also remembered I had the darkness and colored lighting systems (remember the ONE level that used those?) so this level is going to utilize them and have you explore a dark level with primary colors mood lighting.
  
  Will there be a lever-action rifle somewhere in the level? Maybe if you ask nicely.
• Finally, I've planned out a level introducing lifting / throwing + wind mechanics, which is placed somewhere and blocked out with scroll regions, but not actually having any of its stuff implemented yet. It probably shouldn't be in this list yet but I wanna show off my creative process so here's a note originally grafted onto dead trees:
  
  (They're not usually this pretty with color and stuff but the readability on this one got pretty bad after I drew the wind columns)

Not Levels!

Finally I've been fleshing out the Burger Nexus some more, making room for the new minilevels and cramming in more lore and NPCs in Nugget Mines instead of having them ALL in the saloon. A lot of that went into the circus but I also have the obligatory funny graveyard:

I also made this code lock interface thing (which is essentially a regular menu just like a branching dialogue option, but with different drawing code with some more stuff going on). There will be code locks, now I just need to implement lifting and stacking crates and then I can add "immersive sim" to the list of genres for Burgertale! :D

Real Life Stuff

Still not sure how my free time will be affected by my job situation since I'm still mostly watching training videos and going to meetings, but having the main source of stress gone and being forced to sleep at regular human hours has done wonders to my productivity. On the other hand I was in a bit of a bike accident yesterday and cut my hand open - luckily nothing too serious but now typing hurts. Which is why it's clearly an EXCELLENT idea to write giant devlogs! :D