2020-11-28

I've been trying to spend more energy enjoying this long weekend than worrying about making it a productive one, and mostly succeeding so far. Hiked a few miles in Muir Woods on Thursday, which is the most active I've been since the pandemic started. Really took it out of me for the rest of the day but well worth it in both body and mind. I'm blessed to live in an area this beautiful.

I've been pushing ahead on the two "unannounced" Doom projects recently - the pure level design exercise that is part of a collaborative project, and the bigger (read: longer haul) narrative-driven one. It feels really good to build level geo. I don't want to jinx these by talking more about them before they're further along!

Watching Everest play "The Traveling Swordsman Problem", ie Breath of the Wild with Snake-like limitations (player can never cross their previous path) got me thinking some version of that mechanic might be fun as a Doom mod: you see a ribbon of your previous locations trailing behind you, and if your center point intersects with any part of that multi-segment line, you die (or take damage, or whatever). I have all the tech needed to pull it off, but ZScript is a good deal more obstinate than Python - language deficiencies like "you can't have an array of structs" - so I wasn't able to bang it out in under an hour, whereas I'm sure I could have with an ideal engine. Sigh... someday I'll have that environment. Even if I have to build it myself.

Regardless, "Snake Doom" (needs a better name, for sure!) is an idea I can return to next time I'm itching to slam out another of my "additive mechanic that overlays core Doom gameplay" (ie Keymaster, Green Demon, Phobos Minute) style mods.