Last week’s achievements

* Added new fashion effects
* Implemented ~60 more of them and wrote flavor text for all of those
* Ordered a new computer

Current focus

The equipment system followed by battles.

Sample stuff

Flavor text for “Enchanting Evening Warrior”:

“She’s the dapper girl who wouldn’t feel right without her katana hiding under her spiffy attire. If she disappears from the gala floor for a moment, expect that she’s cut down an assassin in a single elegant strike and returned just as swiftly, leaving no one the wiser.”

Flavor text for “Doubly Dolled-Up”:

“Even small highlights can help create flow from head to midsection and then on to toe. Earrings up top for a smiling face, fingernails painted for hands near the waist, and toenails done likewise for feet down below.”

Weekly goals

* Rethink various hidden stats
* Finish off implementation of the remaining fashion effects and test all of them
* Write flavor text for at least 60% of the fashion effects
* Begin testing battles: damage formulas, battle text, etc.
* Set up new computer (if it arrives this week)

Comments

Mostly the same weekly goals as last time, I realize! I missed two main things last week: I underestimated how long it would take to order a computer (over ten hours of research) and I figured there’d be a linear time scale for testing new fashion effects. Not the case! The more I add, the longer it takes to save changes, among other things.

I back a lot of Kickstarter video game projects and I’ve repeatedly seen developers start giving weekly updates and eventually move to monthly or bimonthly because not enough is happening on a weekly basis to report on. Now I understand why. It’s the sane thing to do.

…but I’m an indie developer. I don’t need no stinking sanity! …at least not yet. Weekly updates will continue because I’m pushing myself.

As part of the fashion system, I have various hidden stats like Shoes, Fashion Theme, and Femininity Confidence that I might need to redo following a recent discussion with the awesome developer of the framework I’m using. Changing them would mean redoing all fashion effects, among other things, but if I’m ever going to redo them, it would only be tougher in the future. If penciling out a new hidden stat system tells me this is the way to go, then it’s best to rip that Band-Aid off now.

In much better news, my new laptop is coming, so it’s onward and upward in a matter of days! My current 2007 laptop is a 2.27 GHz dual-core with 4GB memory while my new one is a 2.7 GHz quad-core with 8GB memory and a solid state hybrid drive, so it’ll be a huge performance upgrade all around.