Hey everyone,
Quick mid-November DevBlog.
No preview videos this week, but probably some before the end of the month. I’ve been focusing more on code and especially on refining the lore, so I don’t have a ton of visuals to show right now.
That said, I’ve made really good progress on the lore refining.
As I mentioned before, I thought I was around 850 pages… turns out there were almost 1200 once I printed everything as a PDF.
Absolute chaos: all the ideas were there, tons of notes, but also a lot of inconsistencies – totally normal when you’ve been writing over such a long period.
This “refining” phase consists of taking every element separately and reworking it so it’s truly polished: removing or fixing inconsistencies, and adding even more “overthought” details.
Launching EvoDigNews and writing lore articles has been a huge help in this process.
Every time I write an article, I dive back into a part of the lore, isolate the elements, fix things, add details, and rethink everything to keep it consistent with the rest of the universe.
Over the past ten days or so, I’ve been working on the FuckBall section of the lore.
It was already pretty well written for a long time (some of you may have seen the first elements in old block613 previews).
In the main game, it’s also an activity that Lula will have to participate in to progress her main quest.
I had already started working on the assets, but the rules were still a bit vague, and FuckBall didn’t yet have a proper backstory, origins, history, etc.
I’ve now refined all of that.
An article about the HungryCows from block613 is already up on EvoDigNews.
Another one – formatted as an interview with players from other blocks – is coming soon and will add a whole new dimension.
And finally, the “official” FuckBall page with all the rules, etc., will be published on evodig.
All of this got me thinking… I’ll probably end up making a standalone FuckBall game at some point.
The mechanics, rules, gameplay, UI, animations – everything I need for Lula Saga anyway.
Same logic as Kinky Kart or Chiks’n Eggs: I’m working on systems that will be reused in the main project.
Long story short, I now have a very clear vision of FuckBall and its gameplay.
It’s totally possible to start the prototype without going back and forth fifty times on the lore or mechanics. Even if not everything is set in stone yet, the foundation is rock-solid.
Now the dilemma: to get a first playable prototype (pretty basic) – 3 characters, 4 rounds, basic UI system, core animations, stats, and a solid replayable loop – I’d need at least a solid month of full-time work. I’ve already started, so if I focus exclusively on it, a first proto could be ready by the end of December… but I only have two hands, and that would obviously delay the other projects.
I’m still thinking about the best approach, because I also really want to release the new “proto” versions of the other projects now that everything is on UE5.
On the technical side, UE5.7 dropped a few days ago. I’ve started migrating the projects and fixed the usual migration hiccups (some plugins needed updates, etc.).
Good news: several really annoying bugs from 5.6.x have been fixed in 5.7. In particular the massive UI issues in Chiks’n Eggs – when I moved from 5.5 to 5.6 I didn’t touch anything, figuring it was an engine bug that would get fixed later. Smart move!
For Lula, on the other hand, I had jumped straight from UE4 to 5.6 and got hit hard by those same bugs. To keep progressing, I ended up adding a bunch of workarounds that made the code way more complicated (tons of unnecessary casts, etc.).
Definitely not the right long-term solution. So I’m currently cleaning everything up, removing the workarounds, and redoing it properly – both for future scalability and performance.
It adds a bit of extra time, but it has to be done.
Anyway, things are moving forward, and while waiting for the next updates, videos, etc.
Go check out EvoDigNews if you’re into worldbuilding, ARG-style stuff, totally crazy dystopian universes… you’ll love it!
