Soul searching, Tutorial rework, Map Redux

Hello folks,

February was a soul-searching month that resulted in some good outcomes.

The first thing I want to address is AI tool usage in the creation of the game. As a civilization, we're at an interesting point where people can crank out games with the assistance of AI. I had a friend do so in January when he created a Flappy-bird-like (genre?) in a month, assets and all. It made me do some reflection to determine if I should short-circuit the development of Self Recurse using AI. I, like many others when they feel conflicted, will turn to their friends and the internet.

After some good conversations and viewing of keynotes, I came to a realization of my own opinion - *art is incited through human struggle*. AI would help me build a product faster, but Self Recurse has always been meant to be an artistic expression. Earning money would only serve as a nice side-effect, but was not the core aim. I started Self Recurse after producing 3 not-so-great manuscripts and failing to get any of them published. Along the way, my understanding of writing magnified in ways I didn't imagine. I liked writing stories and software engineering so I chose to couple the 2 by creating a video game.

That was 3 years ago. Since then, I have increased my skills in writing and programing while also learning new skills that would help build my foundational understanding of what it meant to create a video game. 3D modeling, vector art, font creation, video editing, marketing, sound recording, small business organization, and asset curation are the big items on the list of things I needed to sink my teeth into. There are other smaller aspects that I had to pick up along the way as well. These were a struggle to learn. A rewarding struggle, but I don't want the rewarding aspect to diminish the arduous journey required.

This update is also not meant to be a "don't embrace AI" post, but I wanted to let everyone know about why the game is being built the way it is and to manage expectations on timelines. I also don't want to tell others not to support AI-assisted games. It has helped others create games when there were barriers that did not allow them to do so.

Self Recurse has taken me a long time. It will continue to add strain to my life, but I will continue to love so much of the process.

Tech updates

Feature work

• the tutorial screen was reworked to be a video due to feedback given by play testers. The previous version was a slideshow of sorts that had too much data and didn't really show how battle played. The new tutorial gives a bit more insight there.

• made the legend dynamic to better work with varying resolution screens

• map icon reduction and general UX improvements to aid in readability/planning

• credits update with play testers

• enemy next actions are now showing icons

• initiative was removed (players will always go first)

• shard icon is now on decline screen, which should help to show players they get currency with declines

• keywords are more succinct to assuage effect blindness with too much text

• floating text now has a shadow to make it more readable

Bug fixes

• a soft-crash when triggering the credits screen when returning from a run has been fixed.

Balancing

• Java now exiles

• some shuffle in cards will also draw a card to mitigate hand-lock