Esoteric Update #95 - Wash The Grease Off

Like I said last week, I had a load on my plate and it left me exhausted — the kind of exhausted where it was difficult getting much in terms of writing down. So while I did write some lore, I decided to turn elsewhere for these two weeks and seek progress there. I worked on the engine and on the tools available to me.

So, starting with something I've been working on before. I ended up changing some of the details about the choice box tools. Simply put, while heading in the right direction the last time I wrote about it, some aspects of it lacked flexibility. So I fixed that. Most of the things I've written in update 94 still apply. It was just a very light reorganisation process in regards to coarse archetypes.

I also took a look at certain things I initially rejected from the feature set but opted to bring back after talking with Desertopa about ease of use. These features are handy but need to be used carefully. In essence, what this is, is a light implementation of a reflection paradigm for the grammar syntax. Specifically, when using selectors through shorthand, they are now aware of their own production rule file and tags.

So, having those tools I started by writing a very elegant wrapper for the verb functionality, something that will hopefully make it a lot easier to use for non-programmers. And why I do feel somewhat icky about the reflection, they are undeniably useful tools. I guess that similarly to the syntax that allows an array to be initialised with values breaks polish notation rules, it's too helpful to reject on principle.

I've also gone along and used these same features to do some number manipulating tools. Grammars that can be used to convert numbers in... well... numeric format into text. It was more an experiment in using the new features — a very successful one.

Next up, I dove into the engine code and did some optimisation: removed unnecessary variables, unnecessary conditions, that sort of stuff. Honestly, there was no need for this, it's not like the game has any problems processing the scripts, but I wanted to look at my older work and see if I can further optimise what was there. I can still see some things I can address in the future, this has to do with filters... I wrote a large part of that code to work, not necessarily to work as well as it could and at some point, I'd definitely want to return there and work on it more.

Speaking of code, for some time now, I wanted JS to be able to return data from the view (the printed display) back to the scripting language. And after some frustration with JS, I managed to find a rather inelegant but also clever way of solving the issue using invisible forms. So yeah, JS can now return data, both with and without moving on to a new view re-render.

I also updated the icon to match the current logo! A small thing, but it was bothering me for a while now.

And finally, I decided to entertain the notion of switching to different code that would serve as the display for the game. I miiiight be switching to GeckoFX, but I'm not convinced it's a good investment of my time to do right now. Maybe in a month or two.

I also managed to get a little bit of rest, but I've not felt well recently. Unfortunately, that's affecting my ability to work on everything, both in terms of my job and the game. In regards to my job, I've decided that I'll be taking sick leave soon. I hope to use that time to rest fully and build up my energon reserves a little bit while still working on the game.