Partial Lockdown Day 82 (Monday)
Work
Not a whole lot of work this morning. Just the usual stops at two houses. Added in a third stop at the old house, which the guests just left. Really easy day today.
Game Development
I finished redoing the player controller script and animation stuff. It works so much better now! There was definitely some trial and error but I’m just shocked at how much difference it made. I knew I needed the physics stuff in FixedUpdate but the whole thing just feels so much more responsive. I will have to make a few more modification probably, but that will come in time.
Partial Lockdown Day 83 (Tuesday)
Work
I was planning on island hopping today to go to the bank. I found a couple checks that should have been deposited months ago and there’s no other work on the schedule. But I really don’t feel like going to Tortola, so instead I’ll worry about it another day. But then, when you think there’s no work, there comes a last minute call to unlock a villa for a quick showing.
Game Development
So I’ve spent a good while today fixing issues with the current iteration of the game. I’ve completed the redo of the player controller and worked out a bug I had left in it. That’s two version uploaded to Itch.io. Then I fixed a weird issue with the current UI, which was the third version I uploaded today. Still more issues to fix though.
Partial Lockdown Day 84 (Wednesday)
Work
Been working all morning since early. I started out getting my handyman started with exterminating. Then I ran around to all our houses to check whether they had a working fire extinguisher. Met with the intern to discuss some stuff, then ran out and bought all the extinguishers we need. I’m ready to sleep, and it isn’t even noon yet. Oh, then I had to deal with the bank. They’ve migrated us to a new system, so I had to jump through hoops to get it activated.
Game Development
I didn’t get to spend too much time working on the platformer. I did get the sticking attack bug fixed though. Turned out to be an issue with animations. I had to force the player into an idle animation when the attack finished. Without doing that, there was a chance the attack would be activated before another animation played causing the player to stick in an attacking state.
Partial Lockdown Day 85 (Thursday)
Work
Started work extra early today. Ran to a nearby house to unlock it almost immediately after waking up. I mean, before I even began brewing my coffee. Then, at the usual start time, I went out and got more done. Dropped off payments to a couple government offices and checked in on the housekeeper. Once that was all done I set the employees’ schedules for next week.
Game Development
Not all work on a video game needs to be programming and stuff, right? I started out by updating the project on Itch.io with a cover image. And I shared the link to it on my Twitter. Then I dove into actual programming. I made huge strides in the actual game though. Nothing noticeable now but something with enormous benefits down the road. It is now possible to implement a character selection. Plus, this has also taught me something I’ll need in the future.
Partial Lockdown Day 86 (Friday)
Work
Started really early again. Ran out before my coffee to make sure a house was unlocked and ready for the housekeeper.
Pools
Then, pools at the usual time. I started with the easy pool, gave it a nice cleaning. Moved on to the old house. Did a thorough job there to make sure it’s ready for the guests. After that was my nemesis, which wasn’t too bad. Made sure to vacuum it really well. Then on to the new pool, which was as easy as usual. Lastly, I stopped by the leaky pool, checked levels, didn’t do much though.
More Work
Then, I was bombarded with issues at the house on the hill. Seems there’s some leaks that I haven’t noticed, and the owner is pissed. The roommate chewed me out, as if she’s perfect. I do what I say I do though. Twice a week, every week, I walk through the house. I record a video of my arrival to prove I’m there. The owner hasn’t been paying for any cleaning though, so the place never gets opened up. Pretty sure that’s most of the problem, not maintenance, but non-usage. Oh well, I’m doing what I can to address the issues going forward.
Partial Lockdown Day 87 (Saturday)
Curfew
I’m kinda getting bored of these titles, how about you? Maybe I should switch it up but somehow keep tracking this information. I mean, this partial lockdown is going to be over eventually, right? Not that it’s much of a lockdown, just a short curfew in the wee hours of the morning.
Work
Started a little early today. Met the handyman at the house on the hill. Opened the place up, all the windows and doors. Seems even when the housekeeper was there she didn’t do that. Looks like there’s definitely a few seals that need fixing. Turns out all this could likely have been avoided. I had previous scheduled a windows check every six months but the last time we did that was when we switched to the new maintenance tracking system. Somehow the repeating schedule didn’t kick off, which would have had us checking all this two months ago.
It wasn’t long after that I got a call from our housekeeper needing a ride. Went and picked her up and dropped her off at the old house. Then, not long after the other housekeeper calls. She’s been out sick and is complaining about not getting paid for the little time she worked early this month even though I have no idea how long she worked. Hopefully got it all cleared up, but my issues with personal interaction appear to have cause issues too.
Accounting
Once all that was done I worked on some accounting. There was a decent bit to catch up on. I’ve got it almost all up to date. There’s one check I can’t enter because I don’t have a receipt to break down the expense. Should have gotten it Thursday but the guy didn’t seem to be there like he should have.
Game Development
So, with everything happening, I haven’t really been in the mood to work on the game. Even so, I’ve still been frequenting the Unity subreddits. I like helping people there if I can. Doing so has also helped me. I’ve found new ideas and methods of doing things that I didn’t wouldn’t have thought of. This has also lead me to the next big thing I’m going to implement into my game, object pooling. I think I’ll see if I can get that working tomorrow.
Partial Lockdown Day 88 (Sunday)
Work
Even though it’s meant to be my day off, I had some work on my mind. I mean, it wasn’t exactly work, but it was work related. I wanted to create a new task in our maintenance system for repeated maintenance. Similar to what I did for the house on the hill, but this is for another house. Obviously, the task is set for another day, but going forward I’ll at least have a reminder to do it.
Game Development
I am having a hard time getting myself going. I really want to begin implementation of the object pooling for my platformer. At the same time I really want to begin work on another game, a fully 3D game. I’m also thinking of trying out Bolt for the 3D game. And I’m still trying to convince a friend of mine to collaboration on the game. Would be nice to not be doing it solo.
I haven’t actually done any work on games, but I did watch a few tutorials on Bolt and wow, I am kind of excited to give it a try. I also think using Bolt would get rid of a lot of my errors because it’s all visual. So I started another new game, added Bolt, and began playing around. Of course, since it’s a new game, there’s a lot of setup to do, along with the learning curve of adding Bolt and using 3D.
Bolt
First thing I did was get working on object pooling. That was actually pretty straightforward. There were actually a few different tutorials I used that built upon each other to get object pooling to work. The only two main ones that weren’t just “about bolt” were one to create return values, and the other about object pooling. Once I got that all nice and working I moved onto something else important, camera control.
This one is way more complex, and probably more than I actually want/need for the game idea I have. But it started with a tutorial video. But there was no second video, so I had to transition to a written tutorial. I have a feeling that there are easier ways to accomplish what this guy does too. But I’m so new to Bolt that I have no clue. And then I realized the tutorial wasn’t even finished! All that work down the drain. . .
Featured Image
This week’s featured image is a throwback to two years ago. This was an experiment with forced perspective and tilt-shift.
Remember to go check out my Gallery for more photo goodness!
