Spent this week getting a basic ranged attack working, which turned out to be difficult in surprising ways. For some reason only one attack could exist at a time, others just disappeared – I eventually figured out this was happening because they weren’t being initiated properly and ended up either falling out of the level or colliding with the environment and being instantly destroyed, but I still have no idea why it was letting through one attack at a time instead of destroying all of them. Computers, man.
There’s still a lot of work to be done on the ranged attack: The player animations for it aren’t created yet, so they just pop out with no warning, and in fact those animations rely on creating a couple of other animations so that whole thing has a ways to go. Also, the projectile itself is just a little red square at the moment, which is also obviously not what I’m going to want for the final product. I’m not going to tackle the finer points of the projectile attack quite yet, though, because I think getting the pathfinding and other enemy behavior working more accurately is a higher priority. I just spent a little while trying to get the enemy jumps more accurate so they don’t miss ledges so much, but it still leaves a lot to be desired.
I’ve also pretty much decided I need to stick to the every-day work schedule. I don’t need to do a lot each day, but I think it’s hugely helpful to have this standard for myself because it keeps my mind in the project, always thinking about what comes next and how to approach it. Working daily, even if I only end up putting in 10 minutes some days, means that when I put the time in I have a better idea of where to start and what to do. Working harder for fewer days was a nice idea while it lasted, but I think I just don’t have the discipline yet. Maybe next year.