General Update

Sorry for the lack of updates, Secret Project™ has been demanding and I decided to discard any chance at a rest this weekend by taking on Ludum Dare 47. It was good to see some of you in the stream chat and I hope you enjoyed hanging out for that. The game I made is playable here with source code and all. 

I've really been enjoying streaming more. You'll likely have noticed that every Friday I now stream "Feedback Friday" where I play and discuss games made by you, the viewers. It feels really good to have a consistent stream going

I wrote previously about working on a "Cutscenes" tutorial and I now worry I got peoples hopes up as upon learning more about sequences and experimenting... I've realized they're probably not as well suited to this concept as I first imagined. What I'm likely to do instead is show how they can be used to create a room transition, as this gets across more of their functionality and in my opinion, intended use cases. The problem is that a "Cutscene" likely requires moving the camera around, performing specific things to specific instances in specific locations that might vary under dynamic circumstances. Sequences kind of rely on performing single specific animations more than anything else, even though they can be made fairly flexible and can execute their own functions etc. They're more likely to see use in specific circumstances (where they shine, I used them to create a coloured fade transition incredibly quickly in my ludum dare game!) but not as a more general tool for cutscenes in games. This should have been more obvious to me than it was. Sorry to get your hopes up on that one!

Ludum Dare was a great crash course for me in 2.3's new GML additions. I now have some actual hands on experience with structs, constructors, animation curves. I have a whole host of video ideas and I'll be bringing some topics to a vote hopefully next week.

I've also got a few messages on here that I need to get back to so I'll be going through those after I finish writing this update, sorry if you've been waiting!