TODEPOND TIMES: Back and forth

You know it. It's time for another weekly edition... of the...

🐸 TODEPOND TIMES 🐸

What's new this week?

Back and forth

I don't know how many times I've typed this out by now... but I'm making a new engine. And it's called Arroost.

Arroost has two parts. The top bit, that you actually use. And the bottom bit, that runs the thing.

The bottom bit is like the engine. It's called Nogan. The top bit is like the steering wheel. It's called... It's just called... Arroost.

So inside Arroost... is Nogan and Arroost. And inside Arroost... is Nogan and Arroost. And inside Arroost is... hm.

Anyway, Arroost (being the steering wheel and all) needs to be able to control Nogan (the engine). And as of this week, it *can* now control the engine. I guess there wasn't really a moment in time when this happened. It just sort of... became easier and easier with every change that I made. And it's now at a point where it's easy enough for me to work with.

But there's something missing. Arroost can talk to Nogan. It can send messages into it. But Nogan needs to be able to talk back at Arroost.

A steering wheel of a car needs to receive some information back from the engine. Maybe it needs to display a little flickery light when the engine is low on fuel. Or perhaps it just needs to know how fast the wheels are turning.

It's the same for Arroost. Nogan needs to give some information back to Arroost. It needs to be able to tell it things.

Luckily, Nogan already has a way of talking to different parts of itself. It already has a system for sending messages around, internally. So, so far, it's been quite simple to just... send some of those messages *out* of Nogan as well — up to Arroost.

The final few wires are getting stitched together.

Behaviour

A car engine is useless if it's not attached to any wheels. The same goes for Nogan. It just whirs away, firing pulses inside itself. And it does nothing!

So... as part of Nogan's design, it has handy little attachment points where you can attach metaphorical wheels — known as behaviours — to do whatever you want. For the video, I'm making certain behaviours for it, to help me to make music.

These behaviours include... creating things, destroying things, moving things, teleporting things, and so on. You could consider them the "standard library" for Arroost.

But it's quite fun knowing that you could make a different set of behaviours for a different type of project. You could make a set of behaviours that allow you to make pink sand. And you'd get all of Nogan's magic for free, like time travel, and infinite nesting fractals.

You still have to code these behaviours with javascript, but you could definitely make some sort of visual layer or interface for certain types of behaviour.

I guess it's no wonder this is taking so long... What was I thinking... It encapsulates so much...

All the same, I'm really confident that this project is a good one. I just hope that I do it justice.

But hey, thank you for helping me on my way! Your support is helping these things come to fruition. And I thank you so much for that. Well, whatever you're up to, wherever you are — I hope you have a great week 🐸

Days since tode fell asleep: 196
Days since bot went missing: 161