Back to the salt mine.

After a week+ long hiatus from developing Walkman after the passing of my father, I've started getting back into working on the project full stop. I have some time before I get a new full time job, so I'm going to use this time to work on Walkman for an extended period of time, for as long as I can. Once I start working full time, development will be a tiny bit stunted, as I won't be working on it early each day like I have been doing. But, it's my hope to get a working prototype of the game out there for you all by January 1st of 2020.

Progress is a little slow, as would be expected for someone working solo on a decently complex game. I've managed to finish a number of things, however, that I've had trouble on in the past. For example, a working timer is now functional, albeit a bit fast due to the speed which the game runs, but I'll get that to a normal speed in due time. The next big things I want to focus on right now are working windows (such as the Stats, Options, Prestige, and Bitboard windows. I'll touch on what the Bitboard is later), as well as the cell phone. The cell phone is probably going to be the most complicated thing I work on, as it's effectively a sort of room-within-a-room that you can interact with using the mouse and keyboard while at the same time playing the game itself in the main room.

For those of you who are new here as to what this Walkman thing is all about, I'll summarize it: Walkman is an incremental game (also known as a clicker or idle game) which you play as Walkman. Clicking on Walkman will cause Walkman to take a step for each click, and each step you take (at least at the beginning of the game) will earn you one whole shiny Walkman Point (or WP). You acrew these points, which are a cryptocurrency in the world of Walkman. And, after eventually being gifted a free Walkphone, a parody of smart phones such as the iPhone, you'll be given a variety of apps which will allow you to do things such as play minigames, get messages from NPCs, view the world map, obtain quests, and buy upgrades, and invest in miners. Miners will earn you Walkman Points by value of just having them, and the more various miners you have, the more you earn. Just like in real life you spend money to make money, in the world of Walkman, you spend Walkman Points to earn more Walkman Points.

But not is all puppies and rainbows in the world of Walkman. You also have enemies that can stunt your progress. Whether they be malicious little birds that will kamikaze bomb you and cause a debuff to WP earned per second, dogs that will attack you and temporarily prevent you from being able to walk, thieves that will mug you of a small percentage of your current WP, UFOs that will use a tracking beam to leach off of your WP earned per second, or even a malicious Chinese virus that will cause pop-up windows to cloud your view until you close them and run an antivirus.

The game will be free to play, but I gratefully accept donations through my Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/microfrog ). All patronage will help support me and the project. Later I'll have the in-game "Bitboard", which will be an even more interesting way of donating money, allowing donators to buy "bits" on the Bitboard and link their own stuff, whether it be a Twitter account, Instagram, Youtube channel, Twitch or Mixer stream, etc. etc.. What's more, for every $50 Patreon, a permanent in-game buff will be given to every player for free automatically (+2% to WP per second and +5% to WP per click, with a maximum of 20% WP and 50% WP respectively, though the exact numbers may be subject to change by the time the game is officially released).

You can also check out my Mixer stream where I play old games and other things on a semi-regular basis ( https://www.mixer.com/microfrog ). If Walkman interests you, keep an eye on this Itch.io page, as I'll be keeping updates going regularly.

Thanks for your time, and I'll see ya later.