Progress Report

Hi again, everyone!

What an amazingly productive year 2022 has been for me so far. Last weekend, I finished every single image and animation that I plan to use for version 0.39, leaving just the writing and coding to implement. Since I plan to release the update in February, that gives me a lot of time and opportunity to branch out a little. That means that I can take the time to look at implementing some features that have been put aside until now, mostly just Quality of Life stuff. It's hard to fit this kind of thing into a regular update when I usually have so much to implement, so this is a rare opportunity that I fully intend to take advantage of.

Additionally, it gives me an extraordinary chance to do what I have said that I would do for a long time: divide my time between LLtP and the new game. Since last weekend, I have been working exclusively on the new game, specifically the card game. I used to have a rudimentary card game engine that I had intended to expand before implementing the fundamental game rules, but all the work on LLtP never allowed me to get further than that. That is no longer true.

Among other things, this week has seen the following things added to my card game engine:

• Smooth sliding animations for cards moving between decks.
• The ability to draw cards to your hand from your deck.
• Discarding cards from your hand to the discard pile.
• An area of the board that you can play cards to (fully implemented).
• An area of the board where challenge cards can be played (fully implemented). We'll get back to what challenge cards are later.
• A shake effect for individual cards with multiple levels of intensity and duration. This gives big card plays more of an impact.
• The ability to play a card onto another card, with a red or green highlight around the target card showing whether or not this is a legal move.

These are the kinds of features that most players would never give a second thought about because they are expected to be there. Implementing them tends to be a rather thankless task. Still, it's incredibly satisfying to see this thing come together. Almost all the features I need from this engine are now working and ready to go, which means I can soon start adding the first real cards and game mechanics to it. That's going to be the real test, the moment when I start to get a feel for whether or not the game is actually any good (it should be). I can't wait.

But wait I must. Having spent a week on the new game, I now turn my attention back to LLtP. It's like the Force: balance in all things.

The Fairy Queen is going to start seeing some action this week. I bet she can't wait either.

Until next time!