Progress update for 6/16/2012 - 6/22/2012

This week:

1. I worked on the level editor a bit more, adding in some features I wanted after using the program a bit more like "Load last opened level." I also added some support for adding enemy spawners of different types. There's a lot left to do with the editor, but it's incredibly unfun so I really need to get myself pumped up to do it.
2. My roommate worked on AI some more. We've got some Octopus Batteries (or Suzys) placed now for fun.
3. I started tweaking jumping since that hasn't been working quite right. It feels too float-y I guess.
4. I watched Indie Game: The Movie this morning. I expected to come out of it motivated and ready to program. Instead I came away determined, if a bit haunted. In lieu of coding I walked to the local CVS and picked up some Microsoft Points to buy Fez with later tonight (I'd put that off long enough) and also some candy from my childhood. I'm thinking a lot right now about what I want to do with my life and why I like games. I don't have any answers for either of those questions. I can't even pick out which game I like the most from my collection or which had the biggest impact on my life. Watching the movie, I saw many qualities in Phil Fish, Jonathan Blow and Team Meat that I've been noticing in myself lately. I mean, I saw those qualities ahead of time. Not just thinking "Oh I'm like that too" when I was watching the movie. It was more like they echoed things that I had thought or said to myself before. Sometimes almost word for word. I think that making games is what I want to do with my life, but to hear someone echo what I feel inside of me and then to see what they've done in the field I love...it's scary.
5. Did a lot of tweaking to player movement and control. Still not perfect, but it feels much better now.
6. I added support for designating room exits as well as a lot of general polishing in the level editor. It's not quite as nice as I wanted it to be, but the idea of polishing the level editor to perfection right now just isn't something I can stomach. I know that the tools I build to build the game are extremely important, but the drive to work on them right now comes entirely from wanting to implement new features into the game engine. Later on, the drive for fixing up the level editor will come from a combination of wanting to do things in the level editor (when making levels) and embarrassment that the level editor isn't better.
7. Most of what I need for room transitions got implemented, but there are still some problems with it, so sadly I don't have much to show this week visually.

In summary, I didn't get as much done this week as I wanted to, but still made good progress. At least part of my time went to Civilization V and the new Gods & Kings expansion. Raptr tells me I played 10 hours of Civilization V this week and when I think about it, that's probably the most I've played videogames per week since I started working on this in my free time. What a strange thought.