This week I’ve been focusing on improving caterpillars. Right now they are very hard for players to come across. However, with a few extra features and tweaks, caterpillars will be just a little bit more interesting.
Development
Writing about software development.
(Not) Fixing the Final Bug
This is the story of the end of a project. We were about to release the last DLC before we moved on to the next game. Everything was ready to go, except for one, single, game breaking bug that would cause us to fail compliance testing.
Data Driving the Butterflies
Finally! Butterfly data can now be loaded or modified via a JSON file. Now if we decide to change how butterflies work we don’t need to change any code. Even a data pack could be used to change butterfly behaviour.
How A False Positive Can Crash Games
As a developer, the one thing you want people to do is to be able to play your game when you launch it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible for many players after the launch of one title I worked on.
Small Eggs and Better Buckeyes
I’ve talked about how details matter before. So this week I’ve focused on a couple of things that have been bugging me for a while now. These aren’t major features, but they do help to make the mod feel like it’s been crafted by someone who cares.
ItemCraftedEvent Doesn’t Do What You Think
I got a bug reported near the beginning of the month about recipes not working properly. Shift-clicking on one of the custom recipes would cause a whole bunch of useless items to be created.
Backporting for Pain and Profit
I spent this week tidying up some little issues with the mod here and there. I had a couple of small requests and bug reports over Christmas which I added to my backlog.
Books With Butterflies In Them
I’ve finished the last feature and released version 2 of the mod. The last feature I implemented was a book where you can store butterflies and gain information about them. The book has dynamically generated content, depending on which butterflies you store inside it.
Updating the Butterfly Stats
I’ve been playing a game with the mod installed for a while now, and there are a few things I want to improve upon. First, I wanted to tweak the butterflies a bit to add some extra variety. Second, I’ve noticed that butterflies tend to grow in population exponentially.
It’s All About the Little Things
It’s always worth taking some time to focus on the details. Small things can make a huge difference to a mod. I spent some time this week working on small features and little improvements. In the long run, these things will make a huge difference.