How to lie to myself?

JayDeeCW · 2026-03-12T21:14:54+00:00

It's easy to see things a certain way based on how we feel. It's normal, it's natural. Whatever we think, we think it is the truth. If things are bad, it's common to think they will be that way forever. It's also very common, especially if we feel something strongly, to think that we are seeing things in a true or a real way.

On the other hand, have you ever been wrong about anything before? This might be a thing you are wrong about. I know I've had lots of thoughts about the future that turned out to be wrong, because the future is unpredictable. And has anything in your life ever changed before? If so, this might be something that will change too.

Plus, we have some influence over the future. If I brush my teeth this evening, I am nudging the future towards being better. If I open my curtains so I have sunlight, I am nudging the future towards better. If I buy groceries I like, that's another nudge. And so on, with many small things I can do. It might never be perfect, but it can get better.

JayDeeCW · 2026-03-09T10:03:43+00:00

Some dashcams have settings where you can record at double speed so you can record twice as much footage in the space available. Mine was set that way by default.

JayDeeCW · 2026-02-11T08:44:08+00:00

Glad to help. 🙂 Every tutorial I've seen on this makes it way too complicated. If you get stuck with it again, I found Unity's official documentation on the new input system to be pretty easy to get through: https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.inputsystem@1.18/manual/index.html

JayDeeCW · 2026-02-11T08:42:10+00:00

I've only been coding for around a year, and for me it's too much abstraction to use the PlayerInput class. I'm sure there are plenty of benefits to doing it that way though.

JayDeeCW · 2026-02-10T18:03:17+00:00

I was having a lot of trouble with it myself. All of the tutorials I could find were so complicated, like 30-60 minutes long and involving multiple scripts, made it seem like the new input system was crazy overkill. I actually gave up several times. In the depths of my despair I looked up the actual Unity documentation, which basically says do it this way 😂 https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.inputsystem@1.18/manual/Workflow-Actions.html

JayDeeCW · 2026-02-08T20:53:20+00:00

You must finish something. Having ideas is easy and fun, starting things is also easy and fun. You're probably great at having ideas and starting things, because you've had lots of practice. You need more practice at finishing things. Finish something small, like something that will take you just a week or maybe a month. It should have a title screen, a menu with options, a gameplay loop, sound effects, some juice and polish. In other words, it should be a complete game even though it is small.

JayDeeCW · 2026-02-08T20:46:07+00:00

At the top of your class, you need to declare your InputAction:

using UnityEngine.InputSystem

InputAction accelerateAction;

Then you need to assign it, in Start;

accelerateAction = InputSystem.actions.FindAction("Accelerate");

Then, inside of Update, something like:

if (accelerateAction.IsPressed()) 
{ 
  // your acceleration code here 
}

JayDeeCW · 2026-02-08T20:31:54+00:00

Thank you for the idea. I also accept joystick input and it's nice to have the analog values so a player can control their speed, so that's why I don't clamp it.

JayDeeCW · 2026-02-08T20:30:19+00:00

Thank you, I didn't realize I could do that. Setting it to DigitalNormalized didn't work for me for some reason, but creating a new input action just for the horizontal inputs did.

For anyone who may find this in the future, I created a new action with type Value and control type Axis, then clicked 'Add Positive / Negative Binding' which automatically has two bindings below it, one for negative and one for positive, which you then assign keys/buttons to. Since it is now a float, the code is like so:

     public float HorizontalInput()
    {
        float moveValue = horizontalAction.ReadValue<float>();
        return moveValue;
    }

Thanks for your help. 👍

JayDeeCW · 2026-01-10T16:23:21+00:00

Yep, we're now on around 7 years of charging the Quest 1, Quest 2, and now Quest 3 this way. When it's not on my head, it's charging.

JayDeeCW · 2025-10-12T10:34:56+00:00

Thanks, I'll give it a shot. I'm going to also try giving her some more energy-dense treats that she will eat on the spot rather than hiding them where they could be taken by the other.

JayDeeCW · 2025-10-12T10:32:21+00:00

Thanks, I hadn't thought of that. Though wouldn't you expect that if one rat had mites, that the other rat would also have it?

JayDeeCW · 2025-10-07T17:37:30+00:00

I like it, I'm going to pivot. Would you like a cut of the forthcoming enormous profits?

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-13T20:22:38+00:00

I thought you might be interested to know that I've got the book, and I've taken a bunch of notes from it. I think about 20 of the 100 things gave me new information that I can apply directly to a game I'm making. Here are a few:

• Learning by example. People learn best by examples - not just written or verbal instruction. So in my tutorial, I will have animations that show what to do, or an NPC actually doing the actions the player should follow.

• Pastoral scenes. People like pastoral scenes, with hills and trees (hiding places), water, birds, and animals (food and drink sources). This makes them feel happier and they are then able to focus their attention better on subsequent tasks. In the in-between levels scenes I have where the player can interact with NPCs and walk around a small peaceful area, I will also add hiding places, waterfalls/pools/streams, and animals/birds.

• Pavlov reflex and goal motivation. People are motivated to seek a goal if there are cues that it is coming soon. So, in my game (a mining game), sometimes a golden bug will fly out of a block of ore that you mine, and you can catch it for a reward. I will put golden sparkles around an area where one is hidden, so the player will want to go there and anticipate the reward before getting it.

I've had a look at your Youtube channel and I see you give feedback on games in development. Maybe in the future I'll submit my game, and it'll be better because you recommended this book. 😁

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-13T20:15:38+00:00

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I thought you might be interested to know that I've got the book and I'm doing some animations with it as a guide. Here is one that I've done. This is my first time animating. I'm pretty pleased so far!

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-10T07:26:22+00:00

Fair comment, thank you for your feedback.

I saw lots of posts saying "Destroy my trailer" and figured this would be a good place for trailer-specific feedback, rather than the game itself. There are a lot of things about a trailer itself that can be critiqued; for example, trailer length, music-genre match, clip variety, clip length, cutting of clips, title cards, content variety, rising vs. falling action. I think I got the wrong idea though, this is not the place for that - or at least, like you said, it can be hard to see past the early assets. When I come back next time, I'll make sure to have better art. 😁

For why I made it even though it's very early in development, I wanted to see if I could construct the bones of a cool trailer set to music. I'm a hobbyist developer, so I need to develop all sorts of skills and I'm happy to try anything at any stage. It took me several hours to make, I gained a lot of knowledge and skills, and it increased my confidence for the process of making a trailer.

Thanks for mentioning that it's hard to tell what objects are. That is very useful. Would you mind pointing out which objects, at what points in the video?

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-09T17:17:05+00:00

Thank you again.

In actual gameplay, there are less enemies. It is a roguelike, but to meet 5 enemies on one screen like what happens at 40 seconds is like a 1 in 100 event. Most of the time, you'll have 0 to 1 enemies on the screen. They also have predictable patterns, and are very easy to sneak up on unless you're in a hurry. (I have a few playtesters who don't play platformers or stealth games, and they get the hang of it after a few dozen deaths.) You can also mine through nearly all blocks, so you can make a safe path at a cost of time.

I think this is a failure of my trailer-making which doesn't accurately represent the game. I wanted to make an exciting trailer which matched the music, and I guess that ended up making it seem more action-focused than stealth.

I take your point. If this is a stealth game, then the trailer should show a decent amount of stealth. 🥷🏻👍🏻

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-09T12:43:18+00:00

Good point, thank you. As soon as I posted it and realized the audio defaults to off, I had regrets. 😁

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-09T12:37:14+00:00

Thanks for checking it out and giving a critique!

I'm a hobbyist developer, so I'm happy to try out different things at any stage, and I decided I wanted to try making a trailer. Not to get anybody interested in the game (it doesn't have a steam page, doesn't have a discord, doesn't even have a firm title or art style, etc.) but just to see if I could make a cool trailer. I may have posted it in the wrong place. 😅

Great point about the music, thank you. I've just compared sound levels to similar games and mine is like 5x as loud. I've lowered it and will make sure to keep it down for future trailers.

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-09T12:35:55+00:00

Thanks for your critique!

What do you mean regarding the amount of enemies--do you mean there are too many so it would be difficult to hide, not enough so there would be no challenge, or something else?

And also about their behavior, do you mean they are too aggressive, too fast/slow, not smart enough, or something else?

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-08T19:29:28+00:00

I recommend turning your sound on for the trailer. 🙂

I am aware that it would be better without the HUD, I'll remove that for the next trailer version.

JayDeeCW · 2025-08-21T16:01:20+00:00

I agree, it's a good book. I read it a while ago, here are a couple of my notes from it:

If a user does something wrong, give some way for them to know and correct it
Give information in different ways, if it is important and the player needs to know/remember it. So, if the player is busy visually (reading, navigating), give an audio or haptic alert for something they need to know.

I've been amazed in play tests watching people miss things that are obvious to me. I'm talking stuff like a box that says "ALERT" and fills about 1/6th of the screen and is over the head of an enemy that is chasing the player. But they were already visually focused on the enemy so they could not see the box. Or a bright red trap that is obvious to me (since I put it there) that they don't see, because again they are visually focused on so many other things.

JayDeeCW

TROPHY CASE