So, what is going on?

It has been a long time since I've updated, and many things have been going on in both life and game development.

So let's see what has been going on, game development-wise!

Firstly, I have instituted (and been following) a daily "do something on the game" rule. This is almost always followed by a micro-update on the Discord for accountability. Every ten days, I accumulate a zero day that. I am saving up for a "no access to screens" travel period in late August, so if things go well there will be daily updates until then. My own personal rule is that this work on the game must be either art or coding: plans don't count. The current streak is 37 days.

Since the last update, here are things that have changed:

- nursling lineart has been incorporated into the game (adult and senior are still being done), and a few of the visual genes have been added as well. Youth is done, but we ran into some resolution issues.

- All backend genetics have been incorporated *except* for some of the genetics that will control visual variation (such as the intensity of a color, or the exact spots a boke has).

- the nest screen, which is the boke's individual page, has been completely overhauled and now shows all care options, the pedigree, offspring, and genetic "scores" of each boke. Additionally there is now a setting *tab*, not a setting pop-up.

- Bokes can now be trained and exercised and this now affects their stress. Stress in turn affects bokes' ability to breed.

- All bugs I have noticed so far have been fixed.

A closed pre-alpha is now available to play to the members of the Discord server. Please submit bugs noted (and other input!) on the Discord server, it is hugely helpful to know how people are finding the game as it develops.

Now that this new demo is released, what next? 

The immediate intention is to upgrade from Godot 3.4, which I am currently using, to Godot 4.1. This is the latest version available, and since I foresee myself continuing to work on this game for years, it is best to do that upgrade as soon as possible. While this is not forward progress, it is incredibly important to make sure the code functions well. With this opportunity, now that I have a better idea of the mechanics I want to add into the game, I'll be refactoring the code as well (especially in the past month, I have noted a lot of places where I can significantly improve my quality of life as a developer).

Since I am just at the prototype stage, things still don't look pretty. (When will they look pretty? When the game is out of the prototype stage.) The goal right now is to make sure that the bones of the game are fun, and to make sure I understand how all the different components of Godot work. So far I have been focusing on the bokes and how the bokes work. The next big thing is adding inventory, items, and shops. Then other activities available in the game.

I am still working out how to best structure this project, but I think it is safe to say that I will concurrently have one coding goal and one art goal. Currently, the coding goal is going to be the upgrade. The art goal is slightly more complex, but that can be in a separate post.