TODEPOND TIMES: This Is An Arrow

It's time! Welcome to another weekly edition of the...

🐸➡️ TODEPOND TIMES ⬅️🐸

What's new this week?

This Is An Arrow

This week, I've been writing the script for the next video, 🎵 Arrows in Arrows in Arrows, and I've now settled on its structure.

Throughout the video, we will discover many different types of arrow. It'll be a bit of a pokemon-style 'catch-em-all' as we add more and more arrows to our arsenal. I'm currently planning for there to be 14 types in total - some more significant than others.

And they'll all have silly names, like the Arrow of Creation, and the Arrow of Infinity. I want them to sound mythical in some way. Which will hopefully contrast with the silliness of the episode.

The video will be slightly different to usual, with no music in most parts. The tool itself makes a lot of noise, which is why we'd want to keep any musical distractions away. I think it'll be a fun opportunity to mess with the format of my videos.

Everything Is An Arrow

Thank goodness!

I've finally finished working on my tools. And I'm now well underway with building the Arroost engine itself. The first thing to work on is... the user interface.

Similar to CellPond, Arroost will have a cryptic and unusual user interface that you can use to make a new cellular automata. I want to capture some of the same weirdness, and I'm using the same visual style as before (ie: flat and easy for me to make).

However, there are some key differences. CellPond was primarily based around drag-and-drop. You could yank objects around the screen and chuck them onto different panels. But Arroost will be more about pointing (I guess that makes sense, since it's all arrow-themed).

And there's one other key difference. In CellPond, the components of the UI came in lots of different shapes. We had squares, circles, triangles, hexagons and more. But with Arroost... everything is an arrow.

Every button, component, tool, panel, slider... is an arrow.
Even the cellular automata grid itself is made up of arrows!

Why?

I don't know, it's fun! It's arrows all the way down.

Ribbit Report Report

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had nearly finished writing a follow-up blog post for the ☁️ Define Define video. Since then, I've finished the first draft! And the second draft. And the third...

But I'm a bit stuck about it. I guess... part of what I like about making videos is that you can get your message across while leaving some stuff 'un-said'. By spelling it out into a blog post, it loses some charm or magic or something.

I think there probably is a way of doing a decent follow-up post to the video. But I haven't been able to figure it out yet. Perhaps it's too soon since the video's release!

Instead, I think I'll write some Ribbit Reports for older videos first, like ⚡ Spellular Automata, or 🌀 Time Travel. If that goes ok, I'll revisit the ☁️ Define Define one!

I say this every week but I really mean it... Thank you so much for your support! And for being here on this journey with me! I'm looking forward to sharing more with you. Please do have a great week, wherever you are in the world! ➡️🐸⬅️

Days since tode fell asleep: 83
Days since bot went missing: 48