Welcome to today's blurb!

Kept you waiting, huh?

Durb! It's been FOUR weeks! What's the big idea? And not only that, you're a day late!

You wouldn't be in the wrong for thinking those thoughts, as it's been a tumultous past two weeks. As a matter of fact, as of the time I write this, I got written up at work! It sucks.

Unfortunately, all I can say is that the time to make the blurb has escaped me, and whenever I do work on the blurb, I really do have to cram in as much as I can before having to take care of some other errand of the day or before I go to work.

Now while I can mope on and on about struggles, we're here to enjoy the blurb!

So what's the deal with the banner?

For one, I've been really getting into pinball when I get a chance to unwind. I really enjoy old pinball machines, like Diner and Taxi. Black Hole is also pretty good, and Earthshaker is crazy. One that I've been enjoying a lot real recently is one called Hurricane, it's pretty neat! However, the reason I was actually excited to work on this banner was to illustrate an idea I had for a use for wires: diner signs! The only problem is that I didn't have enough time to animate that into the banner, so imagine each letter lighting up bit by bit in a cool way.

For this week's speculation, we've got Tantiem writing the speculation column!

Now what has the community been up to for the past two weeks?

Hey everyone, Tantiem here filling in for blurb for a little speculation section about the topic rocking the nation!

You love them, and most people especially love to hate them, its WIRES!

So what is there to know about wires? I mean, really, its just wires isn't it? Well, I think that wires are less about the arbitrary lines drawn in space, and more about the connections we made along the way. A quick quote from Six can help put us on the right track, as to what exactly wires are used for:

"Once these wires are done we can have switches and doors and driveable cars made with them (going by current plans)"

-Sixmorphugus, October 12th, 2024

So the most important thing to know about wires as it stands, is that it is an integral part of making all the fun stuff happen. Wires in Brickadia, just like wires in real life, have one main purpose: Connect outputs to inputs.

The main thing I wanted to talk about and potentially even speculate a bit on is the exact extent of what wires can accomplish. Before we dive too far into that, I would like to lay out some potential vocab, although some of the statements made may not be exact fact, but are my understandings of the system as it exists (Since the only official information is what can be scrapped together from old messages and the dev-media channel)

First of all, as stated before, wires REALLY are "just wires", there isn't anything that crazy about them. All they do is connect outputs to inputs. What is very interesting, exciting, and extremely useful about them, however, is what sort of outputs are being connected to what kind of inputs. This is where I need to make a few key distinctions:

(!!HIGHLY SPECULATIVE CONTENT AREA AHEAD!!)

A Behaviour: A behaviour, as I understand it, is brick game code. It can almost be thought of as a function- take some inputs (parameters) do some processing (inner logic) and produce an output (return value, interaction).

Based on that, we have three important distinctions on what are currently known as 'components', which I see as an already made behaviour script:

Input component: This type of component takes user input and translates it into something usable.

Intermediate component: This type of component takes existing usable input, does something with it, and outputs a new value.

Output component: This type of component takes input values and does something in the world as a result of it.

In addition, there are two more classes of overarching component I would like to define:

Component: A component that is added to a brick via the applicator (Light, Item Spawn, Audio)

Brickponent: A brick that already has some sort of component attached to it, typically for ease of access and aesthetic (Chair,Logic gate,Button)

This area is where I think the most confusion comes from, and honestly I get it. All of what I just said has no easy confirmation, and is only a possible interpretation of design. If this were the case, there are still some who believe wires to be unnecessary and tedious. Here is where I am going to explain why I think this system makes a lot of sense, and why it is something you can be excited for!

So, why wires at all? Can't we just do everything we need to with behaviours alone? And if that is the case, why are we getting all excited about wires, instead of just working on behaviours scripting? Well, it may be a shocker, but I think the answer to that question is an objective "NO", and the number one reason behind this is because of output components- specifically, output brickponents.

Wires have the incredibly important job of connecting the physical brick world to the logical behaviour world. Some output brickponents, especially things like physics components, HAVE to be stored separately in the world, and cannot realistically be replaced by some additional logic in a behaviour script. In addition, the organization of these connections would be impossible to manage- especially if you were trying to connect your script to components on completely separate brick grids!

On top of the reasons mentioned above, using wires to connect distinct pieces of component to each other is an awesome design decision that is going to force users to build better components (in the future). This is because the wire system heavily pushes the idea of completely self contained functionality in components, meaning that the reusability of any one behaviour is going to be far greater than a system without this sort of restriction in place. Instead of having to write a new behaviour script for every door you want to make, you simply have to take an "interaction" component (Switch, Button, or POTENTIAL 'onClick' component added to a brick, etc...) and connect it to the hinges, sliders, motor, or whatever else it may be!

The current dev media videos showcasing functional wires using logic brickponents are a very interesting use case, since there currently is no custom component scripting (behaviour editor). However, I think it is important to not focus too much on the fact that jank complex stuff (Like a working computer) is being made with only wires.

For now, these are simply demonstrations of what wires and brickponents are capable of, without any additional custom logic through the future behaviours editor. Basically, what I'm trying to get across is that wires are integral on their own, but not more important than custom behaviours. However, it is impossible for custom behaviours to exist before wires, since the wires are the sole method by which existing components can interact with the world and each other, and by extension, the player.

Last but not least, I would say the most exciting part of wires is that they are a precursor of things to come, especially if the timeline mentioned in the above quote is accurate. We have switches, we have doors, so the next most logical step is drivable vehicles! Based on some other communication, I believe we are going to see vehicles by at least the end of this year. Such as:

"probably in a month."

-Sixmorphugus, in response to me asking 'vehicles when', uncolorized, November 3rd, 2024

So, until next time, keep thinking about how wires can best add modular interactivity to your builds, and put your racing caps on for December!