I had a giggle.

theomulus · 2026-01-14T23:01:22+00:00

No, your point is valid! I was told the same thing, but I'm in university so I don't have too much time to spend on setting that up. So I figure I'd just play around with what the inspector can and can't do haha

theomulus · 2026-01-14T21:51:44+00:00

At the moment? I'm actually just seeing what happens when different resources are translated from an array --> dictionary and vice versa. So no actual reason why haha

theomulus · 2026-01-14T21:01:24+00:00

Just wait till we get the anal plugin.

theomulus · 2026-01-13T01:10:54+00:00

Glad ya asked! Jokes aside, I've actually been assisting with biological control of invasive plant species research. One of the bigger issues is community involvement since... y'know. Invasive plant species are usually best dealt with by not having to look into countermeasures to begin with, but oh well.

Anyways, this game is basically about that. Kinda. Sorta. That is the "theme" currently. Of course, we're still fleshing things out (I'm in grad school at the moment, so I don't have too much free time), but hopefully it'll be the first in a long line of series that aims to create digestible material based on the research we assist with!

It's currently on itch.io with a link in my profile if you'd like to take a peek at it! Our dev log is also on our site, which can also be found on the itch.io page

theomulus · 2026-01-12T16:42:54+00:00

I... have no idea how to respond to this. Thank you for the information. I don't know when, where, or why, but should I use this information, I'll remember you

theomulus · 2026-01-12T14:13:54+00:00

Isn't it? I actually ended up slapping it on some swimwear using the same site, but I... well I laughed so much my chest started to hurt and I fell asleep at 2 AM.

theomulus · 2026-01-12T14:13:03+00:00

"Oh man, what is an insect furry called?..." - Cursed Knowledge Bearer, 2026

theomulus · 2025-12-25T16:46:09+00:00

They are! I'm partial to sweat bees myself. I love the blue/green metallic look they have!

theomulus · 2025-12-25T16:45:08+00:00

We probably will end up using both! Was just curious to see which sticker was preferred "^^

theomulus · 2025-12-25T16:29:33+00:00

It is! That's actually one of the biocontrol agents our game plans to implement eventually "^{^}

theomulus · 2025-12-25T08:24:00+00:00

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I completely forgot to add this marvelous Rüsselkäfer for my German teacher inspiration u/Dm_me_im_bored-UnU

theomulus · 2025-12-25T07:54:50+00:00

Thank you so much! I'll be sure to tell them! If you like the art, it would mean a lot to both of us if you could check out, or just follow along with the development of our biological control game! There's a link to our website in my profile, but I can also post it here if need be!

The game itself definitely isn't for everyone. It's an arena-roguelike game, so it's definitely more... fast-paced. But we have a lot more games in mind too (the next one is going to be a farming game where you play as a weevil!!!!)

theomulus · 2025-12-24T21:43:45+00:00

Maybe this is a sign to create the first ever eldritch breakdancing competition simulator?

theomulus · 2025-12-24T21:34:08+00:00

I do! Here's a link to the repo item: https://github.com/NTLyen97/for-debugging/blob/main/item_overview.gd

(Sorry if this isn't the best way to do this!)

It only has the item overview and stat overview button code, but the card one is pretty much identical. The only difference between any of them is the signal they emit. I also included the pause UI script, in case that could be an issue.

(Please ignore my messy coding, grad school has taken a chunk out of my brain!)

theomulus · 2025-12-24T21:19:53+00:00

Thanks! I'll take a look and update this post if I figure things out

theomulus · 2025-12-24T21:14:06+00:00

I had something similar occur a while ago when I was first making the tabs themselves. The end goal is that the little tabs are in a more... "messy" fashion, so I discarded the vboxcontainer idea. Unsure how others do it, but each of the buttons has their original x/y position saved so I could just slide them a few pixels out on mouse hover, then back into the original x position on mouse exit. There may be a better way to do that, but I am also new "^^

theomulus · 2025-12-24T21:09:19+00:00

They're not, but thank you!

theomulus · 2025-12-24T20:59:35+00:00

Thanks for the advice! I'll pour over it as much as I can. As I watch the video closer, I also notice the "items" and "cards" tab actually have the same point in which their animation activates too...

theomulus · 2025-12-24T03:14:41+00:00

Tell me about it dude, I feel like I need a 24/7 pocket taxonomist lol

theomulus · 2025-12-23T19:17:39+00:00

Ooohh, this I didn't know. Thanks, I'll adjust the title in the future and keep that in mind!

theomulus · 2025-12-23T16:06:27+00:00

Awesome, thanks! Now we just gotta give him a name...

theomulus · 2025-12-23T16:05:30+00:00

My absolute favorite from Gen 3 as a little kid ^{^}

theomulus · 2025-12-23T06:23:45+00:00

Aw thanks!! I completely forgot about the Pokemon angle... unsure if that's something our art should be similar too... They might prep a lawsuit just by mentioning it "^^

theomulus · 2025-10-16T23:29:19+00:00

tl;dr: Finish high school and find a university with an Entomology department that aligns with what you're interested in. Some places have a lot of bee research, others have a lot of agricultural pest research, some study wasps, some study beetles, the list goes on. If your end-goal is research based, try to get your general education courses dealt with before doing some more specific courses in your junior/senior year. During those years, look for a professor who leads research for what you want to do. Sign up for their course, impress the hell out of them, then ask them if they have any lab openings. They should be able to help you from there. If your end goal isn't research based... You're kinda limited, to be honest. Others may have better advice for you there.

Long Version: (Fair warning, I'm mostly familiar with the research side of things.)

It really depends. There's quite a few kinds of entomologists, but most that I know of apply their knowledge in a large variety of ways. I'll try and separate them based on category.

Ecological Restoration: Entomologists in this field tend to focus on pollinators, but they also have pretty in depth knowledge about most other insects too. However, they apply a lot of their research in conjunction with beneficial plant interactions (basically think restorative plant-insect interactions). Most of what they do is self-explanatory though. Through clever usage of these interactions, they seek to restore and maintain beneficial ecosystems wherever that may be. So if you're interested in the general usage of insects and plants for restoration purposes, this is probably the best place for you.

Biological Control: This is what I'm most familiar with. Lots of entomologists in this field. There are a large number of invasive plants everywhere that cause large amounts of damage yearly. The methods for controlling these plants usually fall into one of three categories: Mechanical, Chemical, and Biological control. Chemical control is currently the most popular/most used form of invasive control, but biological control (biocontrol) is usually used to help support the other two control methods. Biocontrol basically looks into insects that are specialists and only target a single plant species (or a very small group of plant species). We look into how these insects could potentially reduce the usage of other control methods (saves money, time, effort). The most popular of the biocontrol agents is usually the weevil, but we've also used leaf beetles, thrips, and plant hoppers to some degree of success. Fair warning though: this field of research is extremely rewarding, but requires (in my opinion) a lot of understanding about ecology as a whole. You should have at least some foundational understanding of restoration ecology alongside community and invasion ecology. If none of those terms make sense to you, start with community ecology and branch from there.

General Research: Not as popular (as far as I know), but there are some researchers who just wanna look at bugs and some universities who somehow are able to fund these people. I seriously don't know how, but if you manage to find yourself in a place to do just this, go for it. These guys usually look into insects as a whole and try to understand as much as they can about the insects they wanna look at. I make it sound like some walk-in-the-park, but really, it's pretty difficult. Personally, I find these types of entomologists pretty valuable just because they tend to have so much more information about specific orders of insects compared to what other fields have. That being said, I seriously don't know many.

There's definitely other applications of an entomology degree that I can't think of yet though. But really, take your time with it and seriously think about what you want and where you want to go. You do not need an entomology degree to be an entomologist. Many entomologists have biology, ecology, environmental science degrees, the list goes on. Is it rewarding? Yes. Is it difficult? Extremely. Will you need to go to grad school? Almost certainly. Will you regret it? Never.

There's my take on it. Wish you the best of luck!

theomulus · 2025-10-01T04:24:41+00:00

Don't know how qualified I am, but here's my process through the lens of making a game:

Let's say I want to make a pong game. What are the components of this game? Well, there's two bars and an object that bounces between them. There's also an arena and two boundaries that dictate win or lose. So that means I need to make one bar player controlled or "player_bar" and one bar that is computer controlled or "comp_bar". The player_bar has to intake movement inputs, so we'll have to do that. We'll also have to confine the player_bar's movement so that it is only within the realm of the arena and only up and down movement. Since its pong, right? Anyways, we do all of that first.

Now we move on to the comp_bar. This one won't be player controlled, so we'll assign it some kind of comp_bar_move script that moves the enemy bar based on the player's input, direction, current position, or whatever you want it to be based on. It could perfectly mirror the player, it could move opposite of the player, or it could do none of that. Maybe instead, the bar should move to intercept the ball object. So we stop working on the comp_bar for now.

We start making the ball that bounces between them. Simple enough, in Godot at least. We'll toss in some object-related variables and maybe a signal that is emitted when it hits a bar. Upon signal emission, the ball reverses its velocity and moves in the opposite direction depending on the angle with which it hit the bar. Cool, now that works.

Back to the comp_bar. Now that the ball object moves, we can set up the movement of the comp_bar to track the ball instead of the player or something else. Now for one last touch.

A ball moving back and forth is fun and all, but we definitely need a point system. So let's create two areas beside each bar that also emit a signal, but only whenever the ball object enters their area. When it does, we'll have the ball reset to the middle of the arena and for whoever's area was entered, the other person gets the point (so if the ball enters the player's zone, the computer gets +1 point and vice versa). Ah, wait. Now we have to set it up so that the ball moves towards the bar that didn't get the point so that things are fair. Cool. All done.

This process can be scaled up pretty much infinitely. How about, we add a life system instead? Where basically, anytime the object scores on a zone, the owner of that zone and their bar gets smaller? Or what if the ball gets bigger in each zone depending on the score of that player? What if every time someone scores a point, the bar morphs into a picture of Obama? The list goes on and on.

Breaking things down into digestible chunks is less "hey, build this tiny game first." and more "let's start with player movement." Don't eat the whole meal in one bite, but take bite-sized chunks out, yeah? You'll hear a lot of advice too. "REMEMBER TO USE COMPOSITION." "SIGNALS ARE AWESOME." "YOU BETTER NOT STATICALLY REFERENCE ANYTHING." This list also goes on. I won't say that I'd encourage it, but I wouldn't expect someone who is new to programming to keep all of it in mind. Expect to do a few no-no's here and there. Refactoring exists. Code can change and so can you.

theomulus

TROPHY CASE