Yesterday was one of those days where a lot of invisible structure finally snapped into place. The game feels different now—not just more complete, but more coherent.
Warp Travel & Player Movement
The biggest shift was committing to warp travel as actual movement, not just a transition screen.
- The Player now travels through the Warp using camera/WASD control, with the voidship attached directly to the camera.
- Warp currents affect the Player object directly, allowing storms, currents, and misfires to push or distort travel.
This instantly made scale, distance, and danger legible. You feel like you’re moving through something hostile, not clicking between nodes.
Warpstorms
Warpstorms are now first-class objects:
- They are clickable, expandable, and readable like planets.
- They exert physical influence on the Player via warp currents.
- They integrate cleanly with the Tarot / omen pipeline for future effects.
Warpstorms are no longer flavor—they’re navigational hazards and narrative devices.
Docking (Mostly 👀)
Docking logic exists and works… but undocking is currently bugged, so for now:
Tarot & History Systems
The Tarot system continues to grow into a real backbone.
- Added a new Major Arcana card: The Tower
- Designed to slot cleanly into the existing omen / history flow
- Will heavily influence Warp, catastrophe, and sudden change
- Tarot is now clearly split between:
- Imperial / Structural cards (Emperor, Tower, etc.)
- Warp / Journey cards (ongoing work)
History seeding and deterministic RNG continue to pay off—omens feel authored without being scripted.
Cherubs, Servo-Skulls, and UI Life
A surprisingly important win: UI agents.
- Cherubs and servo-skulls now:
- Wander intelligently within their UI bounds
- Bob, bank, loiter, and react to state
- Carry deterministic “culture DNA” tied to chapter/seed
- The “Start Cherub” replaced the traditional Start button
This turned out to be huge:
- It teaches perspective, scale, and interaction immediately
- It reinforces that orders are given by clicking living things
- It makes the UI feel Imperial, not abstract
Honestly one of the best design decisions so far.
Camera, Perspective, and Refinements
A lot of quiet but critical cleanup happened:
- Fixed multiple camera/UI space bugs (including a nasty drag teleport issue caused by the wrong event camera)
- Suppressed auto-zoom correctly when the Player is manually navigating
- Improved Y-based scaling and sort order for depth illusion
- Refined galaxy map readability and spacing
The map now reads correctly at multiple zoom levels without UI noise.
Known Issues
Because transparency matters:
- Undocking is bugged → docking disabled for now
- Warp Tarot is still being split/refined (Imperial vs Warp influence)
- Some systems are intentionally “overbuilt” for future expansion
Overall
This was a systems day, not a content day—and those are the ones that change everything.
Warp travel now feels dangerous. The map feels alive. The UI teaches the game without words. And Tarot is becoming a true narrative engine.
More soon.