iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

very pleased with the final result--nothing overlaps, gaps are even, the columns became a grid. this needs release heheh

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I'm fixing Digital Devil Saga's appalling skill assignment menu--3 columns and 3 sort modes should do it

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Reposted by countless bats

Wanly Made Mailman @basicchunnel.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I compare Remedy’s whole vibe post-CONTROL to stomp-clap-hey indie music of the 2000s: the latter is folk music for ppl who react poorly to folk, the former is weird fiction for ppl who react poorly to strangeness. HOUSE OF LEAVES played on a uke

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

should Qud3D (Parasang) be a realtime FPS but not very well-balanced, or realtime-but-actually-just-Qud-turn-based-underneath with 1:1 parity with Qud's balance? both modes will exist but they require very different kinds of support...I THINK? I wonder if I could fully use Qud AI in FPS mode

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

hmmm well it's less flat now but a little more...nicotine-stained? not sure this is what we're going for

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

the Six-Day Stilt now matches its achievement icon...this is still not hand-placed, just built from some hiiighly specific rules lol not all that satisfied with how it looks tho, maybe different strips of weathering across its face to give it some texture? even...other tiles?

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I'm going to leave no-loads Qud in as an option, but have decided everything looks and works better if parasangs and z-levels are generally discrete--just too much cost to having them continuous, aesthetic and technical. areas that NEED multiple z-levels however like the tree and rustwells get em

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

what if ruins tiles under buildings populated their z-levels upward instead of down? would that even make sense. are buildings in the ruins large enough for this to work. I want tall shit

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

guns are working but combat wasn't in Joppa, so I ran toward Red Rock and took a shot at a baboon not expecting anything, and he vanished. no damage indicators or combat rolls in Qud, just cessation

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

parallax is possible, but needs someone smarter than me to implement it! I'm gonna try the BLINK HORIZON, where when you parasang-transition you get a quarter-second fade-through-black and the horizon updates. here I'm walking between the corners of 3 parasangs repeatedly.

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

parallax horizons are proving tough. either I keep hammering on them or I return to a per-parasang horizon draw--just need to figure out a better horizon transition across parasangs without load screens. load screens are seductive right now...but not yet

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

just sprinting across Qud, trying to test the horizon out

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I think the Spindle needs to be 2D at a distance and 3D up close. meter-perfect parallax on horizon features kind of demands a 3D model to move "around," or else the feature seems to slide along the horizon. the Spindle needed to always face the player for effect--until they got close.

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

experimenting with a veeery slightly 3D Spindle

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

my psychiatrist told me Big Spindle's not real and can't hurt me

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

take one of the horizon parallax tech...............promising actually

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

3D mountain placement? fully 3D mountain placement, properly situated in the same frame by their distance, some close and obstructing features and others far, behind the features? this would be a big win

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

in the no-load-screens open Qud world, it'll be worth it to see if I can get the horizon features (mountains/Spindle/Chavvah/maybe Yd) completely dynamic based on my specific standing location. right now they cross-fade as you cross parasang lines and it just looks confusing.

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

something bad happened to my brain in the past few years and I slide off of narrative now. fiction just doesn't seem as important as it did, especially in video games, but even in ttrpg podcasts, novels--anything. it all feels like filler now. this is a sickness I would see cured

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Parasang has no combat in yet, but I had Doom AND Parasang BOTH up visualizing Qud, and in Doom combat happens, routing through Qud, so I died in Parasang. computers are interesting

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

can I make Twitch notify me when anyone at all goes live with Qud? I know this feature at least used to exist

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

continuous parasangs are amazing but they're not always loading in the most logical order yet

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Caves of Qud...2 or 3 parasangs loaded at once, from the sky

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

my work operates on the same very broad principles that those toys that let you scan barcodes to generate monsters or whatever do: any string of numbers is a surface you can interpret

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I...I made it...the new engine can walk from Joppa to the Stilt with no load screens* (the loading algorithm still lags behind a direct sprint northwest but I'm working on it) poor Stilt has been demoted in the new engine, it will rise high again

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

today's experiment: can the new engine load 9 parasangs at once, selectively around the player as they move, for a continuous Qud overworld?

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Joppa's back to basics, but the load time was instant

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

the new engine's working! Caves of Qud!

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

new engine so far: the dreadroot are swaying...and the stars are...That

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I basically have two options: either I make pixel-perfect but *not really very good looking* recreations of the rustwells in my own engine, or I *figure out a hand-authored situation in Doom that fakes it.* or I can make my own engine, then fake it too--maximum gains, but most work.

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

it might have to become Qud-in-a-custom-Doom-inspired-engine. gzdoom is getting in my way too much. in my own engine, I could make the world truly continuous--load parasangs as you run through them--make tall/deep zones--it might be worth it.

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

deploying horizons to Dwarf Fortress in Doom the same way as in Qud, exact same mechanism of "looking ahead" to surrounding map tiles--results interesting but not as nice as Qud's, for now this is fortress exploration mode btw

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

my brain is always supplying neologismic jargon while I work on these projects. today: spurious reloading while wandering around a zone is "anxious" reloading. anxious = something that happens because the program has received the false impression it is out of sync, when it should trust sync state.

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

the rust wells might have to be achieved through sleight of hand and trickery instead of a technical solution. z-levels win again, in the grand tradition of the roguelike. illusions have served me well so far and are going to do so again now

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

left things in a bad state last time. the rust wells are destroying me

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

fortress exploration mode in Dwarves in Doom........a haunting sight. the ceiling is too low to walk into this chamber of horrors

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I'm gonna try procedurally pre-authoring standalone Doom WADs to serve as the rustwells' layout. Qud still needs to expatriate all of the units from the parasangs below to make it playable, but this might solve my layout problems.

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

a watervine farmer named "girsh nephal" just manifested in my rustwells (Qud-side) and started doing spoiler attacks from the very endest game enemy. I don't know why this happened but it was alarming

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

loving how the rust wells *look,* but they don't pass inspection yet. the side-caves aren't carved into the walls, and I can't seem to loot deep in them. keeping Qud oriented while in a combined space like this in Doom might be thorny. but...we need deep levels sometimes.

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countless bats @countlessbats.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

playing around with Dwarf Fortress as an elf and gave a sermon about animals then clicked the guy next to me and excuse me???

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