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It’s been a few months since release, so I think this is as good a time as any for a bit of reflection. I don’t really have a blog or anything (I could use my portfolio site though, I suppose, or itch…) so I’m writing here! Obviously spoilers for Flipside, so if you’re interested in my games and don’t want to have plot beats exposed to you, maybe wait to read this!

Is this the easiest way to, like, "create" a new child scene/node in an existing scene, and then initialize/modify its starting variables? Do I have to use a PackedScene? And, on a related note, if I should use a PackedScene, does that mean I have to add every scene that I want to create in this way to the script's scene as PackedScene-s? Or is there a way to just, like, specify what kind of scene you want to create and then use that here?

Also, is there a way to easily read variables from other scenes/nodes that you aren't connected to via parent/child relationships? Specifically, is there a way to read something without setting up signals to/from the relevant scenes which send said info? I know for parent/child relationships you can use $ to indicate a related scene, but is there a way to do that across disconnected scenes? I assume using signals is probably the answer here, and I'll just have to bite the bullet, but I'm curious.

For context, I'm coming at this from using GameMaker, where you can typically just specify an object name and create it at any given set of coordinates in a room, so this method (setting up a bunch of inheritances/connections beforehand) feels a bit less dynamic and a bit slower. I think if this method is the norm, I'll probably just get used to it, but we'll see!

Finally got my secret sauce (2.5d top-down platforming) working in Godot. Doesn't mean a whole lot atm, since there are no platforms, but it's something!!

I've finished the meat of the 2D tutorial and tinkered around with export settings, so I now know how to export/make games with this thing! They wouldn't be particularly good games currently, but they'd be something!

I've been thinking about what I might want to do as a first project. Something relatively simple collision/backend wise might be good. Maybe I'll make a multi-room adventure game with pre-rendered static room images, like in Myst or Riven. I feel like that would only really require an array, some text, the ability to increment variables/send signals, and the ability to change location bg's. I could try to do it in 3D, but idk how comfortable I'd feel with that yet. Food for thought tho!