Interior Decorating System Nearly Complete

I finally got my ass into gear this month and I'm happy to say that the interior decorating system is very nearly complete! I ended up needing to rebuild the entire ship interior from scratch multiple times, but I finally landed on a system/architecture that I'm happy with. I wanted to get it right because the same system will eventually be used for space station interiors.

The customization system can be accessed from the Body Shop terminals on the 2nd level of City stations. The UI, while functional, is deeply embarrassing.

Y'all, I ... am NOT GOOD at this

This is hopefully just a placeholder. I'm planning on giving it a proper beauty pass before release, but you never know, maybe I'll get lazy. Anyway, from here you can change the style and color of the whole ship or of individual areas, so you can have multiple vibes per ship. Business in the cockpit, party in the midship. It's pretty fun to play with!

Bonus Trippy Nonsense

I'm not ready to share final result screenshots quite yet, but here are a couple of short, trippy videos that I made while testing various aspects of the interior customization system. Just for fun:

Coming Up Next

I've only got 2 or 3 days worth of work left on getting the interior customization system feature complete, but then there's a bunch of loose ends like integrating it into the save/load system which will take a bit longer. After that we'll be moving on to exterior customization! I should be able to reuse some elements of the interior system and hopefully learn from my mistakes so if all goes well it should come together fairly quickly.

Notable words used in that last sentence: 'should', 'hopefully', 'if all goes well', then we've got another 'should', and a 'fairly' for good measure. Believing in yourself is for fools.

Potato Clock Games 2023 Powerhour

New year, new powerhour!

Visit the Potato Clock Games Low Effort Debauchery Generator to check it out. This dumb thing takes a YouTube playlist and plays a random minute of each video for a somewhat underwhelming but hassle-free powerhour experience.

Cheers!

A Slow Start to BRS v5

A slow start is still a start, but it has not been a particularly productive month. This is due primarily to a bunch of IRL drama (mostly resolved now) but, if I'm honest, also because I've been coping with said drama by obsessively trying to 100% horror-farming masterpiece Gleaner Heights. I've been a fan of the genre since Harvest Moon on SNES and I've always wanted to make my own weirdo farming game. Maybe someday. Anyway.

So I didn't get started on v5 in earnest until pretty late into January, but despite that I've made decent progress and, more importantly, I'm back in the groove of working on BRS nearly every day with my burnout meter comfortably in the green.

Pregame

My time has been spent almost exclusively on my 'pregame' checklist, getting set up for the work ahead of me and fixing little things from the last version.

I've been using VS Code as my IDE but ever since I upgraded my PC like a year ago it's been absolute ass. I spent a bunch of time trying to get it to work, and I guess I succeeded, but for some reason that caused compile times to jump up to like a full minute for every little code change. So I dove into Unity assembly references, which hurt my brain, but it brought compile times back down to like 10-30 seconds. Which was cool, but it somehow introduced a bunch of new annoying behavior to VS Code so I finally said 'fuck it' and made the switch VS Community which is working fine except compile times are back up. I am losing my god damn mind a little bit with this so I'm just moving on and dealing with it for now.

I also added a teleport tool for testing & debugging. I can't believe it took me this long. A lot of my testing time is spent just traveling between planets & stations, and now I can teleport immediately to any station I want. The logic for this was fairly easy to code, but I got got bogged down for a day or 2 wrestling with the UI. It's partly because I'm not good at UI, but I think Unity deserves some blame here, too. Implementing clickable text links apparently requires a CS PhD, so with my lowly bachelor's I had to improvise a bit. Still took longer than it should, but well worth it for the time it will save me later on. It's a little buggy, fine for internal use, but I might clean it up eventually and integrate it into free flight mode, so you can start the game anywhere you want.

Interior Decorating

I've got a nice start on the interior customization system. The architecture is mostly in place, I've coded the main tools that I'm expecting to need, and I'm working on solving the technical challenges of changing object models & materials at runtime. Nothing is actually hooked up in-game yet, but the groundwork his being laid.

Rogue System Reboot Madness

There are currently 2 projects underway to reboot / remake Rogue System. Please spend a few minutes now & then radiating positive vibes in their directions.

One dude apparently has Michael's blessing & possession of the IP. There's some info at the end of this video about it and he's got a website up as well.

Another dev is making good progress on a similar project, here's their YouTube channel. They've taken a pretty hard turn away from a strict RS-like (no plans for orbital mechanics) but maybe they'll have a change of heart. It's been a fun project to follow so far, at any rate.

If either of you are reading this, godspeed & good luck! Now get back to work!

Coming Up Next

Once I get all the technical bits & pieces in place I'll diving into the nightmare of putting together a UI for ship customization. Customization will happen at Body Shop terminals which you may have noticed hanging out on the 2nd floor of city stations. The UI will be a whole lot different than the other terminals; rather than relying entirely on keyboard commands, I'll be experimenting with a UI that players can interact with using this new fangled 'mouse' contraption. Get off my lawn. Until next time!

Getting Started on BRS v5

I've taken a bit of a break from Black Road Sky to deal with the holidays and other various IRL drama, but I'm getting myself back into the groove this week and looking forward development in 2024. My goal for the year is to finish v5 and get a decent start on v6, which will finally focus on ship systems.

The Plan For Version 5

Ship customization system. This will be purely cosmetic, but I think that the ability to customize both the interior & exterior of your ship will be a cool feature. It's also something that I don't really know how to do, so I'd like to clear the hurdle sooner than later. Customization options will initially be limited, but will be expanded significantly when I get around to fleshing out the 5 provinces in like a couple hundred years.

Input System Refinements. The input system for control bindings needs some love, and it will need room to grow once I start adding more cockpit controls, so it's something I need to tackle now. I'll probably regret saying it, but I don't think this should take too long. The system itself is working pretty well as far as I can tell, but there's UI work to do and some basic features (deadzones and whatnot) that need to be implemented.

Graphics. I plan to spend some time with every update from now on working on making the game look better. This time around I'd like to redesign all of the planets and moons that I didn't get to in the last update (so, most of them) with the new procedural planet generator. Except for the gas giant, probably, which I think will require its own shader. The current planet generator can't handle craters, so adding that feature will be the main technical challenge.

Gameplay. The main new feature here will be a basic pilot reputation system. Reputation will be per-province, basically you'll gain points for timely deliveries and accurate landings and, eventuality, lose points for violating station protocols and whatnot. Reputation will eventually unlock things like new mission types and customization options, but for now it will probably just be something to grind. That's gameplay, technically!

But I Don't Want Any Of That Shit, I Want More Buttons To Push

Me too, dude. We're getting there.

In the coming month I have some cleanup/pregame work to do, then hopefully on to figuring out the architecture and UI for ship customization. o7

PCG 2023 Shareholders Profits Report

Ladies, gentlemen ... (clinks diamond-bedazzled champagne glass full of Miller High Life) ... if I could please have your attention, esteemed yuppie plutocrats. I see you all found your robes at the door, very well, very well.

Another capital year has further consolidated our unholy power, casting the suffocating chill of our magnificent shadow upon enemies and supplicants alike, the filthy masses cowering in fearful reverence of our numbers, our numbers, our numbers that go up.

(The robed congregation chants, "OUR NUMBERS, OUR NUMBERS, OUR NUMBERS THAT GO UP!")

Excellent. As you know, downloads of the latest version of Black Road Sky, released only 2 short weeks ago, have already shattered expectations, the numbers reaching values that can only be described as positive integers. Surfing the bloody wave of this success, YouTube subscriptions have very nearly broken the single-digit barrier, sending a shockwave of doom across an already decimated landscape of smoldering flesh and bone. Next slide, please.

The whiteboard illuminates. We drink of its purity. And we pray.

("OUR NUMBERS, OUR NUMBERS, OUR NUMBERS THAT GO UP!")

This concludes today's meeting. Thank you for your continued conspiratorial racketeering as we look forward to another year in the terrible reign of Potato Clock Games.

Release Announcement: BRS v0.04 (Ship Redesign & Damage System)

New version now available on the Itch.io page, give it a spin!

In this update I've attempted to make the game look less shitty with a redesigned ship (interior & exterior) and some redesigned planets & moons. I've also added a new planet with 2 moons to explore.

Gameplay-wise, we now have a basic damage system, which will be expanded on as I add more detailed ship systems in future updates. This can be disabled if you still want to exercise your god-given right to run into shit without dying. For more information on new ship maintenance considerations, check out the 'Help' option now available from the escape menu, which also includes basic procedures for departures, arrivals and warp drive operation.

The help menu was a player suggestion, as were the new additions of an infinite fuel option and a free flight mode, both now accessible from the title menu.

Other quality-of-life improvements include slightly less wonky manual navball rotation and an expanded cryopod display which now shows the nearest station in addition to your targeted station, as well as your distance to the edge of cryopod and warp range limits.

There were also a few steps backwards, if I'm honest, particularly with space station lighting, both interior & exterior. But, like, whatever. I'll fix it later.

Thanks for sticking with me through another glacial development cycle. Hopefully the next one goes quicker. It probably won't, you know, but here's to keeping hope alive. o7

BRS Version 4 Release Date & Trailer!

GET HYPHY, CREW!

New version will be dropping in 10 days, on December 19th. It'll be available for free from the Potato Clock Games Itch.io page. Here's an incredibly unnecessary trailer that makes the game seem more exciting than it actually is!

I also plan on releasing a more casual 'what's new' video along with the game on the 19th, so stay tuned here or keep an eye on the YouTube channel for that if you're interested.

I'm never trying to edit an Aphex Twin song again, by the way. That whole album is sick, though, if it's your sort of thing.