#tri-wing

Und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann föhnen sie noch heute

Der Föhn der Liebsten wird am Kabel heißer als dort, wo die Luft austritt: Ein untrügliches Zeichen dafür, dass das Kabel vom vielen Hin- und Herbiegen mürbe geworden ist und nun wohl eine Litze nach der anderen bricht. Der Widerstand im Kabel erhöht sich, und es wird heiß.

Wie schon so oft, wird in mir der Ehrgeiz geweckt, die "Luftbrause" umgehend zu reparieren. Aber ich ahne auch bereits, was auf mich zukommt: Derlei Geräte sind häufig mit – wie ich sie nenne – Arschloch-Schrauben zugeschraubt, Schrauben mit sternförmiger Vertiefung mit einem Gnubbel in der Mitte, einem Schlitz mit Steg, fünfzackiger Sterne und so weiter. Heute sind es zwei Schrauben mit 3-gezacktem Schlitz, auch Tri-Wing genannt.

Vor vielen Jahren habe ich mal ein Sortiment Schraubereinsätze ("Bits") gekauft, in dem sowas alles drin ist.

Schrauberbits für alle möglichen Eventualitäten

Dummerweise sind die Schrauben in dem Föhn aber so tief versenkt, dass ich sie mit einem Schraubenzieher, der so einen Sechskantaufsatz für die Bits hat, nicht erreiche. Ich gucke erst mal bei Amazon. Von dort würde man mir bis morgen ein Schraubenzieher-Set liefern. Kostet aber auch 20 Euro.

Als Nächstes suche ich nach einem alten Schraubenzieher, den ich nicht mehr (unbedingt ...) brauche und nehme einen passenden Schraubereinsatz aus dem Kasten. Dann schleife ich alles blank (ZInk und Chrom muss ab) und aktiviere mein WIG-Schweißgerät. Innerhalb kurzer Zeit ist der Bit an den Schraubenzieher geschweißt. Jetzt nur noch die Schweißpunkte rundschleifen, und schon kann die Reparatur losgehen.

An einen Schraubenzieher angeschweißter Schrauberbit mit Y-Schraube (oder Tri-Wing)

Das Kabel kürze ich um 30 cm. Damit ist es immer noch lang genug. Ich finde auch die Stelle, wo das Kabel gebrochen ist. Schon ist der Föhn wieder heile, und eine kleine Schlacht im Kampf gegen die Unreparierbarkeit gewonnen.

Los equipos de STAR WARS y  PORSCHE han creado el Tri-Wing S-91x Pegasus Starfighter.

Ok guys, school is doing an excellent job of keeping me busy. I have a ton of essays coming up and midterms are along the way as well. On top of that, I have a new eight week class that just began as well (pro tip: NEVER take eight week courses unless you’re really brave, committed, or a total masochist). Plus, I’ve been using the off time to better my health and exercise or relax a bit. There’s also the possibility that I might have a new job as well, so we’ll see in the near future haha. Overall, it’s looking like I won’t get back into a serious workflow until next month, which isn’t what I planned for, but I made a serious agreement with myself to take school seriously. In the meantime, I will work on some animations and art stuff in my off time while I take breaks from coursework since pixel art is a nice break from my studies. On top of that, I’ll begin laying out a roadmap of the game’s development cycle over the next few months, so that I can keep track of things and publicize them for anyone curious to see. As far as pre-alpha goes, I think I’m actually going to withhold it from the public due to a certain video discussion that I watched awhile back. I’ll go more into detail with that later. For now, know that I am alive and the game is still happening. I just have some stuff to take care of first. Here’s an early animation of something I have planned for TW while you wait:

These past few weeks have been kind of strange for me, as I’ve felt a strange mix of emotions while working on Tri-Wing. Perhaps I had issues with the code at first, and I began to feel uneasy about the stability of the game, or perhaps it was due to my perfectionist tendencies and lack of experience that halted my progress and created a sense of frustration. I’m really not too sure, but what I do know is that over the last couple of weeks I have not been fully satisfied with my work. I found myself asking questions like “What are you doing to do if it isn’t up to your standard?”. I really just felt so incompetent.

A few nights ago I was clearing my email inbox when I saw my old Alpha code for the game “Duelyst”, a game in which I drew some inspiration from, and decided to give it a whirl. I got through some of the tutorials and decided to stop playing it because I knew I would love this game. I thought to myself “Why can’t I feel this way about my own game?”, yet something was still missing. It wasn’t the fact that the game was still incomplete and the card system had not even begun yet, nor was it the fact that various combat mechanics are still in early development as well, but it was the simple fact that I felt insecure. I still kind of do, honestly. My game lacks a real lobby due to my own inability and personal constraints, it doesn’t have the most stable netcode, but it does work, it lacks many crazy online features and cloud saves that most games have, and I feel bad for not being able to do that much. It’s one game and I’m one newbie, so it’s to be expected, but I still feel bad about it.

I’ve been trying to find the inner motivation to work on this game once my exams are through with next week, and it was so hard. There’s still so much work to be done! I need to begin the card system, then I have to make card attacks (which includes coding them, doing the art and animations, etc), then I have to add all of the sound! After that, I have to port it to Android and try to get local Bluetooth multiplayer working in the future and then make a website! There’s so much to do, it’s just so stressful, when I could just be spending my free time doing other stuff. 

I’ve been watching a lot of videos and reading articles about Indie games. Few of them ever “make it” in the gaming world, and often times they just get lost in a sea of games. I thought about how to present this game. Do I move away from the pixel art look? Do I add some crazy features? While I have considered a material (flat/solid) design, I don’t think I could change what I already have going for me. I like the look of this game. It means a lot to me. The style is strongly reminiscent of the Megaman series, which is something I wish to pay some homage to. 

Ok so I’ve been pretty busy with school and work, and this just hasn’t been going smoothly. There’s always errors in which I cannot explain with the lobby. In theory I should be able to get it set up, but it just chooses not to work with my game. I can get it working on like every sample scene, but just not on my game. I decided to make the game just work via direct connection without a lobby. Up top is a screenshot of the current menu. The right-side of the menu changes depending on what you press on the left, so it initially starts off as blank. The deck editor also comes up and down on click, and I just need to hook up the buttons. I’ve also done some general code trimming in order to up the overall efficiency as well.