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What creative projects have you been working on?
This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.
Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.
If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.
Previously I shared about my progress on my itsy bitsy fishy desktop pet game. I spent a lot of time making it possible to procedurally generate the fish's appearance-- just the surface design, not the body shape. The outline, fill, pattern markings, etc. are all on separate image layers so I can programmatically control each layer's color and appearance. The next logical step is to add breeding mechanics! I really enjoy breeding mechanics in virtual pet games, and it's one of my gamedev dreams to implement that too. I have a bluesky thread with video demos of my "virtual genetics" and a peek at my code. The baby fish randomly inherits traits from its parents. Unselected traits just get carried as hidden genes, and may be passed on to the next generation. There's also a chance to mutate and get a random color. The hidden genes are like recessive genes, but unlike in real life, fish traits in my game aren't categorized as dominant/recessive, since trait inheritance is just random. I am planning to add a cute little "pedigree" / "family tree" feature to show each fish's parents and grandparents. Aside from that, I've been working on adding more pattern marking variations, decorative plants, and hopefully an option for a larger tank too. Oh and some hats for the fish too!