some thoughts as a postmortem for my own benefit
- most importantly: i set out a specification and more or less followed it. i don't think i like the IMPLEMENTATION of the specification, but I did exactly what I said on the tin, and within the time frame I expected to spend on it.
- for this type of game assets feel a lot less important than content and I feel like I got the priority swapped, leaving something more important (composition and sound design) to the wayside well before I should have. most of the time I spent with it during the week was trying to get the gameplay framework established before adding the actual content (you know, the part of the game you actively play).
- in relation to the content point: i do not feel like i particularly like putting together "levels", as those are structured content with a specific design in mind designed to trick or challenge you. i love PLAYING a well-designed level and understanding how it all works together. actually putting that sort of content together? lol nope. i also don't want to make Sick Beats but formless ambient so like. yeah. not as good a fit as i would have liked.
- that point is being made less to be self-deprecating and more to point out to myself that trying turn-based or system-based gameplay would likely feel more coherent to me than trying to forge a guided tour of challenge design.
- bevy coding ergonomics feel awkward for this particular type of game, where something needs to happen at specific, fixed intervals that aren't aligned to the bevy's internal Time structure. it was easy enough to use Stopwatch/Timer to keep the internal BPM ticks aligned with each other (and I was very happy that I got the LEDs to blink in sequence and repeat the way they do) but either my system design isn't great (likely) or bevy internals make it difficult to make quantization of the sort needed possible. FixedTime could work but only if it's mutable inside the game itself; tempo changes necessitate an alteration of the internal game clock. i will not be remaking Rez in bevy to find out, i can tell you that much
- i don't feel happy about the project but at least I hit a finished point with it