Jan 12 Updates
What’s up y’all! We’re back. I hope you’ve been doing great things out there.
I am in a really good mood today. The slow buildup for 2026 is going well. I’ve now worked on game dev seven straight days, for at least two hours per day. I’m also on a four day streak of tracking everything I eat and completely avoiding all processed food. Erika is back home. This week I’d like to restart speedrunning practice, to try and get back to live streaming.
Game Updates
This whole working two hours every day thing is definitely a good path for me. Most of the days of last week, I didn’t want to do the work. I’m slowly getting better at doing it anyway, though. I have it in my head that I cannot miss a day, even though clearly I could miss a day and nothing would happen. Shhhhhh.
To start the year I zoomed out and did a little longer-term planning. This is all subject to change, but the way I have it drawn up, there is one hub area called Friendship, and four areas that are like ‘levels’. After completing the four outer levels, you can proceed to the fifth and final area to complete the game.
Historically, I have worked on both an action game akin to Mega Man and a jrpg akin to Earthbound. In some ways these two ideas are starting to merge a little. Let’s say you start at level 1, and the max level is 20. Let’s also say that for every four quests you complete, you level up. That gives us 80 quests to chart out.
All leveling up will be complete before the final level, so the 80 quests are divided up among the four levels and the hub area. That makes for 16 quests per area.
I want there to be a mechanic where you have to re-visit the areas in order to fully complete them. In other words, the first time you enter a level, you won’t be able to reel off all 16 quests. Let’s say you can do 8 right away, and the other 8 are gated by your overall progression in the game. In some ways this now feels like 8 levels, plus the hub world. Four plus the hub available right away, and four locked behind progression. I envision that once you complete two of the levels initially available to you, you can unlock one of the gated areas. Once you’ve beaten three, you can unlock a second, four for a third, and five total (gated or not) to have the whole map unlocked.
My vision here is that there is one big quest that constitutes ‘clearing the area’. So of the eight quests available in a level right when you start, really you only need to do one to complete the story. But, doing non-mandatory quests causes you to level up, which can increase your stats and make the game easier.
Let’s say each level up also grants you a skill point. You will end up with 20 total skill points if you reach the max level. You can choose to spend them on the following upgrades:
Increasing the number of hits you can take before you die. You can increase your health a total of 5 times, so one quarter of the skill points go here (5 skill points)
Power up your attack - another quarter of the skill points go here. This makes your attack stronger (5 skill points, 10 total)
Increase inventory - you can bring one food item with you into the levels. I picture this game working on an expedition-by-expedition basis. So like, you’re in the hub world, and you equip yourself with an accessory and you bring a food item with you. Then you choose one of the four areas to go to, and that is one expedition. The expedition ends either when you choose for it to end, or when you die. Any progress you make prior to leaving / death is saved. You can use two skill points, one for each inventory upgrade. So, when fully maxed out, you can bring three food items with you into the levels (2 skill points, 12 total)
Increase the number of accessories you can equip. To start, you can equip one, but you can spend a skill point to increase that to two, and then another to get to three (2 skill points, 14 total)
You can spend a skill point to gain the ability to lockpick doors and chests (1 skill point, 15 total)
You can spend a skill point to gain the ability to hack computers (1 skill point, 16 total)
You can spend a skill point to become a cartographer, which adds a helpful layer of detail to the game’s map. Maybe it shows chest locations and quest markers or something (1 skill point, 17 total)
You can spend a skill point to become a chef, which expands the range of items you can cook and bring with you into an expedition. The things you cook as a chef are what go into the ‘inventory’ slots mentioned in #3. (1 skill point, 18 total)
You can spend a skill point to reduce the amount of time you have to wait in between dashes. This is the first skill a speedrunner will take most likely, unless lockpick or hacking saves more time if you take it first. (1 skill point, 19 total)
You can spend one skill point to be able to triple jump, rather than double jump. I will have to be careful with the level design to never make triple jumping mandatory though, so you can beat the game without taking this (1 skill point, 20 total)
There’s some stuff I like about this skill tree. If you’re struggling with the difficulty of the game, you’ll probably gravitate towards health and power, as those things make surviving easier. Being able to carry more food into the dungeon and equip more accessories also helps you survive.
For a skilled player, you might take the other skills first, as they tend to help you explore more thoroughly. Lockpick and hacker let you access areas sealed off to people that haven’t taken the skill. A first time explorer will want to take the cartographer skill to assist in mapping out the game, while an expert player might already have the map memorized. If you’re a speedrunner, you’ll probably want to take the better dashes right away, and push yourself to beat the bosses with very little health and a weak attack.
The other consideration for a struggling player is the hub world. There’s 16 quests in the starting hub world, which equates to four level ups and four skill points. All of these will be optional, so spending extra time in the hub world before venturing out into the more-dangerous levels will bulk up your character if you find yourself needing that.
Rewinding a bit, I mentioned drawing this up as if there will be 80 quests. That number also sounds high to me, you’re not alone in thinking that. It’s pretty easy to lower it though. The first way I envision lowering the number is for the one main quest in each of the levels to be worth an entire level up on its own. So maybe each level has 4 puzzle quests, 4 mini boss quests, and 4 quests that involve exploring the area and collecting something. The last four quests would then be consolidated into the one quest that represents clearing the area, as far as the game’s progression is concerned. That already lowers the quest count by 12 (three per level across four levels).
As for the themes of the four levels, my mind was drawn to the five hindrances in Buddhism. The fifth, doubt, can be reserved for the final level. That leaves:
Sensual Desire - this will be consumption focused and use the candy and ice cream theme that I’ve shown on this blog before. The quest line will be destroying the processed food plant that the local economy revolves around
Ill will - This will be a planet with two eternally warring factions whose quest line revolves around helping them end their pointless feud
Torpor - lethargy. This will feature a society glued to screens, and the quest line to free them
Anxiety and worry - I was picturing a planet or area where everyone knows they are in the collision course of an asteroid or meteor or something. The quest line will revolve around helping these people live in the present rather than in constant worry of their future demise
Doubt - the fifth hindrance will involve the main character overcoming self doubt and clearing the game.
Also, for the first time I feel like a name for this game is in my head. “No Easy Way Out”. The internet fans can call it NEWO.
Roadmap
Part of this year is about getting a little more end-result focused with game dev. There’s a game to make, and there’s no time to waste. I need more of that energy. Here’s the things I have laid out to work on
Phase 1 - things that apply to the entire game
Complete all of the movement programming
I went back into the state machine governing the main character’s movement last week, and I am happy with where it’s at. I’m comfortable considering this to be complete. We can dash, air dash, double jump, walk, and shoot. After you dash, there is a period of time where you cannot dash again. The main character flashes orange when your dash is recharged.
Complete a dialogue system
This is the can of worms I am working on now. There’s a lot to it. Last week I got my basic textboxes working again. They print letter by letter, and have an accompanying sound effect. If you press a button while the text is typing, it auto-finishes all typing and leaves the text box on screen for you to read. If you press the button again, it deletes. While text is typing, you cannot move the main character, and most things in the scene tree stop running. When the textbox is gone, you can move again. There is room for a portrait of the speaker, the speaker’s name, and the what the speaker is saying. There’s also a little arrow that bobs up and down, indicating that you need to press something to advance the text.
Long-time readers of the blog may remember that I have created a JSON-based text storage system in the past. This time around, I am thinking about localization right from the jump, and that thinking caused me to veer in a different direction. Now, I have a CSV that basically has one column for the ‘key’, and then one column for how that key should be translated in each language. As I’m working, I’m only filling out the English column since that’s all I know, but the point is that the game will be very easy to translate to other languages. I just send the CSV to someone, and they fill out the column of the language they are responsible for. The game’s code only has keys in it, no actual text. This and the bullet point above are all complete
Things still to do and what I’ll be starting this week looking at:
Making sure the textbox can accommodate a back and forth with the player. Right now you can only be talked at
Making the textbox accommodate one speaker saying multiple textboxes worth of dialogue. Right now, it works like Final Fantasy 1 did - you’re only allowed to say one box’s worth of stuff
Programming in player choices in dialogue
Programming a cutscene player
The rest of phase 1 hasn’t been started yet. This includes the following stuff. UI. Pause menu, inventory menu, skill tree screen, maps
Saving system
Cooking system
Screen transition system
Phase 2 - things that will be done level-by-level
Phase 1 is kind of the support system for the game. Phase 2 is things that will make more sense to do on a level-by-level basis as the game grows. E.g., enemy design
Background designs / set dressing
Music
Sound effects
NPCs
Quests
SO, we have a long way to go. If you caught some of the updates on last week’s post, you probably saw I did take the time to create an NPC. I do plan to mostly work the roadmap in order, but one thing I’ve found to be helpful is to always have some pixel art that I’m in the process of working on. That way, if I feel burned out 90 minutes into the 120 minute work session, I can spend the last bit working on pixel art, which I generally find to be less taxing than designing systems and programming them.
Like last week, I’ll be posting daily updates here throughout the week.
Goals for January 12th:
Two hours of game dev (streak is 7)
Track all food consumed, no processed food, under 1900 calories (streak is 4)
Two hours of speedrunning (streak is 0)
Post an update to this blog (streak is 7)
Monday night, after day 1 back at speedrunning
Okay. It’s been a long time. I appreciated being able to revisit speedrunning after a lot of time off and a clearer head. Here’s where I’ve landed on some things.
What guiding principles can I follow in speedrunning?
If there’s one thing that I can see that caused my major roadblock in speedrunning last year, it was being unsure of how to handle seemingly-conflicting pieces of information.
Let’s start at the top - what is my main goal in speedrunning? I could feel myself wavering on this toward the end of last year. My goal purportedly had always been to reach as high up on the leaderboards as my sanity and general well being would allow me to reach.
After spending a bunch of time reflecting on it…that’s still my goal. I am not interested in turning my stream into something more entertainment-focused than it is. I am not interested in riveting discourse with audience members. I am not even interested in making friends - at least not while I am streaming. I am interested in competing.
Let’s now consider a topic that I thought about a bunch last year: should I be streaming more often? This is an area where information felt conflicting and confusing at times. On the one hand, it felt like I was spending too much time in isolated learning. On the other hand, I didn’t want to become someone who streams regularly at the expense of competitive rigor.
People who read the blog last year might remember that I joined the Speedrunning Fun League for a month. This is when I played Ducktales 2 with a bunch of people who speedrun a new game each month as a “fun” competition. I met some truly fine folks. But look, for better or for worse, “fun” isn’t a word I associate with speedrunning. I’ll call it gratifying. It gives me a sense of pride. It gives me a sense of fulfillment. I’m not here for fun though. I never have been. I’m here to put together the most impressive speedrun portfolio of accomplishments you’ve ever seen. I do very few things in moderation.
But, yet, there was a seed of truth to this idea that I needed to stream more. I think one thing that confused me was that I don’t need to stream more to get more people to watch or to meet more people or give myself a reason to dress up. All of those things very well might happen and they might be positive things, but I needed to stream more because I needed more achievable goals.
Last year, I was grinding strategies for Mega Man 4 that ONLY the world record does. The #2, #3, and #4 times did not do these strategies. Only the WR did. Mega Man 4 is a competitive game. There’s 174 runs on the leaderboards. In Mega Man 4, there’s a lot more levels on your way to the top than in some of the other games I play.
The other games I play are part of what created conflicting information in my head. I have a natural love of a lot of games that even other retro speedrunners consider niche. Nothing wrong with that - but, those games simply have less competition. So yes, I could watch the world record of Claymates and of Adventure Island 3 Warpless and of Felix the Cat Low% (all games I have the WR in) and replicate those strategies right away. But, not every game is the same. Launching right into learning the world record strategies for Mega Man 4 wasn’t a smart move, which wasn’t something my ego was willing to accept very quickly.
This is part of what creates the nagging feeling that I needed to stream more. I needed to choose a lower bar of entry for Mega Man 4, and stream that. This is effectively what I did with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4: Turtles in Time. I reached the #2 time on a fairly competitive leaderboard by moving up a little at a time. Eventually though, I left this way of progressing behind, thinking it was a waste of time to plot out a slow rise to the top. The thing is, sometimes it is a waste of time. But, sometimes it’s not.
A new feature I want to add to my speedrunning process is goal pacing. I need to deliberately start with less lofty goals when the situation calls for it. I don’t expect that I will always know when the situation calls for it, but there’s a few good indicators. The total number of runs on the leaderboard is one good indicator, since it’s a proxy for how competitive the game is, and therefore how perfected the world record strategies likely are. How long it takes me to learn level 1 is probably another good one. I practiced level 1 of Mega Man 4 for like two weeks and still couldn’t do it last year. I need to be faster at lowering the bar, understanding that it is the road that will lead to the greatest amount of my own success.
Donkey Kong Country 2 is a good game to keep in the back of my head as a reminder of this. I have the #25 time in DKC2 and I’m very proud of that time. Despite being #25 it’s the third fastest time in the USA, and the fifth fastest time in North America. I would certainly like to improve it someday, but I can watch that run and see how good it is. If you want to beat my DKC2 time on the leaderboard, you’re going to have to bring it. And at the end of the day, that’s what actually gives me a sense of pride in what I produce. Whether I’m at #25 or #1, if you want to beat a mclepke time, I want it known that you’re going to have to give it everything you’ve got.
Here’s to another year of speedrunning.