last week I realized that due to the requirements of this prototype's battle system having an AI system that looks ahead several turns, I now have a way of simulating game state without actually waiting on user inputs or animations or any other external state
in other words
for the first time in my entire game development career I can USE A TESTING FRAMEWORK!!! I can just drop in a little set of instructions of what should happen in a battle and I can press a button telling me if it behaves correctly or not! WHAT AMAZING TECHNOLOGY TO FINALLY BE ABLE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF. ONCE I GOT SOME BASIC TESTS INTEGRATED THEY IMMEDIATELY REVEALED A SUBTLE BUG IN THE SIMULATOR. THIS IS SO COOL I'VE NEVER BEEN SO EXCITED ABOUT A SINGLE BIT OF TECH IN MY LIFE AS THIS.
button that tells you if your code works or not. wow. wow. wow