It's been a while since my last update, so I want to take a moment to reflect on where I am at, and where I am going.

I managed to come up with and to implement the Ability System. It took me a lot longer than I thought that it would. Partly because I still don't have a clear picture in my mind of what the end result, the complete game, would look like. And partly because it took a fair amount of mental effort to wire it into place, without making a complete mess of things.

I struggled for a while to come up with some unique idea for the game, but got nowhere, and this, I believe, hurt my motivation. I started to question myself and this hobby, whether it is worth the effort, whether I should be doing something else with my spare time. I think that I was slightly burnt out as well.

What helped me get back on track was to accept the fact that I don't know what the end result will look like. I don't know if it would be fun or if someone in their right mind would even want to play it. And that I am completely fine with that, because it does not matter. What matters is that I keep going. I decided that I would just do the steps, one by one, as they come to me. By doing so I am still solving problems, learning the tools and practicing the craft.

I am really glad that I pushed through. I worked on another project some years ago, where eventually, I got stuck in the same exact place, in an identical situation. Back then I couldn't get through, but this time I have made it a bit further.

I implemented the logic for kockback and chain-lightning abilities:

• Knockback moves a unit one tile in a direction. If this tile is blocked, deal collision damage to both;

• Chain-Lightning checks if there are "conductive" units/obstacles on adjacent tiles and jums to them. For this I used a Breadth-First Search algorithm;

• 'Line of sight' logic for the abilities, so that units, that are blocked by obstacles or other units, can't be targeted (unless by artilery type of ability).

What is next? Goal is to have a playable demo, an actual game. That means more units, more abilities and enemy AI. First I want to come up and finalize the units and their abilities. I need 6 different units for this, each with some unique ability, 3 for each side. Once I have that, I can start working on enemy AI.