Hey there,

I've been a bit absent so I just wanted to tell youse all what's up.

For the past couple weeks I've been spending most of my time working on a better physics based animation system. In Happy Wheels, you'll notice characters can only hold certain poses. More complicated animations such as walking, or picking yourself up, or climbing would be extremely difficult to do with box2d (the physics engine used by Happy Wheels) alone. With this additional system, assuming I figure it all out, it would be possible to have complex character animations that still interact with the physics world. It's been a pain in the ass, but I've made a lot of good progress.

Most likely, I would not be adding this system into Happy Wheels. Too much would have to change with the way the current characters are built. It's possible that, when finished, I might make a mini game to illustrate what's possible (was thinking a horrifically violent version of kung-fu). Further down the line, I might want to convert everything currently in Happy Wheels to this new system and possible make it a sequel. It's all speculation right now. It all depends on how things turn out, and possibly new things I discover.

Something that would be possible with the new system would be user contributed animations. Similar to how people submit levels in Happy Wheels, an animation editor would allow people to contribute character animations that could be applied to any character.

I'm excited about figuring this out, as it would allow me to do make some really retarded stuff. I'll still be making Happy Wheels characters and random things, but currently I'd like to make some headway with this new stuff while I remain motivated.

I think that's it for now.