The Lazy Man
Hello friends! It’s finally Friday. I hope you have some awesome plans with friends. Life is always better when you share it with friends.
Anyway, I wanted to talk today about the progress I’ve been making on Martian Alchemist. I still don’t know exactly how I want to setup the Potion Making Station so as of right now, it’s still undeveloped. However, I was able to talk about it/brainstorm with a friend and I came up with some good ideas so hopefully those will be finished up in the next couple weeks.
Mostly, though, this past week I worked on building out the greenhouse ingredients and the spawning mechanism for said ingredients. I am no where near done with that but I've almost finished drawing all the sprites for the ingredients that are going to “grow” in the greenhouse (there are going to be a ton more ingredients that you can purchase from merchants that aren’t going to grow in the greenhouse). Originally I thought about just drawing one or two, but since I have to draw the rest of them eventually, I figured I would just do it now. These ones are going to take the most time since they need multiple sprite versions. They need the version that grows in the greenhouse, the harvesting animation, the inventory sprite, and the processing animations. And since the rest of the ingredients only need the inventory sprites and I’m going to use shaders for all the processing animations, these ingredients were something that I was kinda dreading, if only because it was a lot of work.
But, as I’ve said whenever I'm faced with the feeling of “ugh…this is gonna be a lot of work,” I try to just do it anyway. Because ultimately, that’s the right decision. Do it right the first time, you know?
This reminds me of something my mom used to say when I was a kid. I used to dread cleaning my room—piles of toys, clothes, and everything else would build up so high that I’d have to carve out paths just to avoid stepping on LEGOs. When I was told to clean, I’d hurriedly shove everything under the bed. But my mom would always check eventually, making me clean twice. She always said, “The lazy man works the hardest.”
It’s tempting to cut corners and rush through tasks, especially when they seem overwhelming or tedious. But just like with cleaning my room as a kid, taking shortcuts often means more work later. In game development, there’s a delicate balance between rapid prototyping and putting in the time to do things right from the start. You don’t want to end up polishing something that isn’t worth the effort, but you also don’t want to create a mess that needs fixing down the line. So, even when it feels like a lot, I’m learning that it’s usually worth doing it right the first time.
Anyway, I’ll have some more images and updates for you next week. In the meantime, stay cool friends 🥰
