Senses & Swimming

First round of public feedback

I showed Crescent Loom at OMSI's mini maker faire and it got a fantastic reception. I was worried that the clunkiness of the demo would put people off, but the prospect of being able to build something drew more attention than I thought it would. What's more, most of the attendees (and players!) were kids. "The minecraft generation", somebody commented. I took a bunch of screenshots of people's creations, which you can see here. This game is happening!

Swimming physics

Literally the night before the maker faire, I finally got the physics for swimming working. I found this guide on buoyancy and drag just in time. The final game will probably have both swimming and walking challenges, but movement for getting something to move underwater is a little simpler so I think I'm going to focus on that as the main environment.

Eyes

I added another sensor. It simply raycasts out from a point and activates the neuron if it hits anything. Crude, but more useful for reacting to the environment than the touch sensor.

To-do

• Adding some features has broken the JSON save/load function. I have a feeling that's going to be a continuing theme. I'd like to get a database set up so people can save (and share!) creatures online.

• I need to make a pipeline for getting some better art ingame. Started poking around with importing .svg vector graphics to put on top of the shapes. Realized that it might be possible to have Inkscape double as a physics editor as well by just converting the saved shapes to Box2D. We'll see.

• More editor polish. Dragging around limbs, modifying muscle+tendon strengths and range of eye sensors, some axon pathfinder bugs.

• Kickstarter videooooo. Been putting this off for too long. Need to finish my draft and start filming me talking and stuff from lab.