It's Been a While.. What's Next?

Posted 2/4/2024
by TheHocken

The last six months have seen quite a bit of action, so much so that I haven't had time to blog about it. To make that easier to do, I converted my static HTML to NEXT.js.

When I initially started this site, I wanted to keep the web work low complexity and cheap so I could spend my brain power and money on my game. So I went with hand built html/css/javascript, though css coming from tailwind to ease that a bit. I intially thought it was working well, but as I started to want to share my posts and have a bit more dynamic content, I realized I was copying, pasting, and modifying a ton of boilerplate HTML and small things were taking a long time or getting addressed inconsistently across my site. ALL BAD STUFF for a developer.

The combination the amount of work I needed to put in just to create a new blog post, or fix a simple error across my entire website, with the fact that I wanted to focus on my game first and foremost really demotivated me to write content here. So it didn't happen for a while.

It's been on my TODO list for some time to rebuild my site in something component-based, but it took a kick in the butt from a colleague to get me to actually do it. The kick came in the form of a commit against my site with some NEXT.js code. Thanks Daniel!

After a few days of work, I have a new site that is much easier to work with! I can now create a new blog post with a single command from my dev machine and get to writing. All the navigation and meta data is now consolidated down to a few components used across the site and I don't have to worry about anything but the content of my posts. I'm excited to get back to writing and to start sharing my progress again.

On the progress front, A LOT has happened since my last post. I have a few things to catch up on in the next few posts, but here's a quick summary:

- An early prototype was tested by a few friends
- The game's architecture has been completely reworked to be more modular and scalable for new content
- I've introduced a modular AI system and created 2 new enemy types
- Added enemy vision system (get your stealth on my dude)
- I've been building plans to get more prototypes into more hands

Proof of work below, the new shield draugr on patrol.

I'd like to close this post with a dedication to start making more regular updates. With the new framework hopefully rocking away, I'll be aiming to release a new post at least every two weeks. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you in the next post!

-TheHocken