Thunderous
Devlog

whoami

This is a working log, not a product page. I'm building a framework for an action roguelike — the aim being that most of the game logic lives in the framework, so swapping in a different set of assets gives you a meaning…

This is a working log, not a product page.

I'm building a framework for an action roguelike — the aim being that most of the game logic lives in the framework, so swapping in a different set of assets gives you a meaningfully different game. To pressure-test that, I keep pulling in asset packs and iterating on them, seeing what holds up when the art changes underneath it.

It's in VR, and that turns out to matter more than "it's in VR." The player's body is the input, so almost nothing can be judged from a desk. Repeatedly, something has been provably correct, passed every test, logged exactly what it should — and been wrong the moment someone wore it. A damage band that had been switched off for weeks because its ceiling sat below the average swing. Enemies that "couldn't fire" and were firing. A mechanic that taught players the opposite of what it was for. Each of those looked healthy in every number I had.

So a lot of what I write here is about measurement: how to ask a question in the shape of the thing you're actually asking about, and how to tell a real result from a plausible one. That's become as much the point as the game.

Whether this turns into something I release is still open. It's closer than it was — there's a run loop, a hub that grows, items worth choosing between — but the point is still getting the systems solid enough that a more serious project could stand on them, and keeping an honest record of how that goes.

Two kinds of posts: devlog entries about what got built, and learning entries about what I got wrong or had to redo. The systems page tracks the individual pieces and how far along they are.