Welcome to today's blurb!

Hopefully you guys like the banner this time around. I've been fiddling around more with painting tools recently on programs like Drawpile as of late. As a result, I've found the perfect brush to use for anything painting related. Sweet!

I've also used this brush to make some other sweet painted pieces, like the ones below:

Credit: me lol!

Unfortunately, I'm not the best at this sort of stuff. Why do I say that? I can get so far into a piece like these, and then mess it up by not getting the colors down JUST right. A huge bummer!

Another thing about this banner is that I really wanted to make it animated as well. OBVIOUSLY it's not impossible, but it's a lot more difficult to animate something that looks painted and to make it look good. Not that it would've been a problem, tsk tsk, it's more so that it would've taken a LOT more time to make this banner complete. As a matter of fact, this might be one of the few banners that isn't actually animated, which is really rare!

Anyways, the next blurb is going to be the 75th blurb! Can you believe it? I've done some prep-work over the past few weeks getting a bit more reacquainted with a program I've dabbled in for some months, and so far the progress is looking good. I just hope I can get what I'm trying to do down before the time comes around for that.

For now, let's enjoy what the community has been cooking up for the past two weeks:

Adjustable masses! People like lightweight things, people like carrying dumbbells. Unfortunately, while it is easy to make very heavy bricks, it isn't exactly possible to make very lightweight bricks!

Well, with the reveal of this new feature, it seems we can expect something like that soon!

Credit: Sixmorphugus

The use cases for this are actually quite convenient. For one, anything air-related! Balloons, hot-air balloons, blimps, you name it, it can be done with a feature like this.

Of course, one thing that would be nice to go along with this feature is the addition of a weight measure. That way, players can use precise weight measurements in order to get the exact behavior they want from certain physics objects.

This is especially the case for things people want to recreate things using specific mass measurements. I, for one, have always been a fan of those videos where people use Minecraft to describe real world concepts like geography, in addition to using game physics to recreate physics experiments.

Now obviously, since the big idea here is to allow physics objects to have very light masses, one has to wonder about controlling these floating entities. While some players have found a few workarounds, planes are still something part of the community wants. With the addition of adjustable masses, I would speculate that this would be the perfect time for the developers to start cracking away at some bare basic flight controls of some sort. As of right now, a jet thruster brick exists that isn't in the current build of the game.

Credit: moo

Of course, I'm not one to suggest adding thrust to a brick meant to give pulse is easy, but I think even the barebones of something like that can at least still go a long way for the players still waiting for something remotely close to plane controls.

That pretty much covers physics objects, but what about other speculation news? Well for this next thing, we'll be going over something that involves both some speculation, and some analysis!

Recently, a huge reveal has been made in regard to a more sophisticated scripting system!

Credit: Zeblote

For a good deal of time, it seems there's been some uncertainty regarding behaviors, scripts, and the likes. When it seems like one of the two will make it into the game, some backpedalling follows quietly. Last I heard, I thought behaviors was the big thing coming to Brickadia! After all, an easy-to-get-into scripting system does sound quite appealing.

So, what gives? What's the deal right now with all this scripting behavior hullabaloo? Are they the same thing?

One thing is certain, there definitely is a hard pivot into making Lua scripting in-game an upcoming feature. This is so much so the case that you can generate an island out of bricks using a script!

Credit: Zeblote

However, this doesn't necessarily mean that behaviors as we last recall them are quite gone! Let's take a look at this recent screenshot:

Credit: Sixmorphugus

Let's take this apart bit by bit.

First of all, as a preamble to all of this, we're told that anything in regard to behaviors and scripting will also be useful for player-made mods in Brickadia.

We first get a mention of Luau REPL. For those unaware, REPL stands for Read-Evaluate-Print-Loop. It allows players to run pieces of a script or a command, then immediately see the results of that. After that, it's just about ready to continue executing whatever else is needed. To boil it down: Luau REPL is just a way for people to script.

You can see what that looks like here with this screenshot:

Credit: Zeblote

As of right now, the developers are on the first stage of implementing Luau REPL. Based on these screenshots, and what was mentioned by the developer Sixmorphugus, the REPL will operate from the player chat. These scripts, or "behaviors" COULD be loadable from files.

Now hang on, behaviors? Let's clear things up with this screenshot from a couple months back:

Credit: Sixmorphugus

The big point of focus is the beginning and the end of this screenshot. Luau scripting operates with the same range that was intended for behaviors. The reason? It's easier to make! Is that the only reason? No! What I have to assume with the statement, "...(as in doesn't require designing the scripting system for access by regular users on your server because it's the only thing available)..." is that it's referring to permissions. The Luau REPL already has access permissions figured out on a much safer, secure level. In that regard, having to design a custom system like that for behaviors isn't necessary!

Let's simplify this for my fellow small-brained friends with an analogy: You're getting the same car you were promised, except the keys for the car are already made for everyone who is going to open it and drive it.

Now, let's look at that end part of that screenshot. It mentions "block editor." If you've ever tango'd with Blender or Scratch.io, that is what was originally planned for behaviors. Simple, block-based scripting where the scripting could be done with both custom typing and visual UI blocks.

So taking this into account, the Luau REPL is replacing the previous plans for behaviors, at least in terms of the methodology for scripting. Does this mean behaviors is dead? If you weren't reading any of this like a stupid-head, well, I could let you live with the delusion, but that wouldn't be right. Behavior sas we know it is gone, but the functionality remains present. What it seems like now is that the term behaviors is being used to refer to custom scripts or executions using the scripting system provided by the Luau REPL.

Okay, with that out of the way, that should answer our questions with behaviors. TL;DR: visual scripting is dead, but scripting in itself and loading scripts is coming soon!

But what was the rest of that plan that I mentioned before, with all that modding stuff? Well, I guess I can't end this column quite yet, huh?

So we know why the Luau REPL is coming. We know what it's replacing. But we now know that this is only a temporary measure. The REPL is here only until an actual API is built for player-made mods to use. "An API? You just lost me!" Ok, sit down. API stands for Application Programming Interface. It's what the code from player-made mods talk to in order to actually function in-game. Think of API as a way for code or a program to talk to another program or, in this case, a behavior talking to the game.

An official Luau API is necessary because that is what the player-made mods need to operate. The Luau REPL doesn't provide an API that can be called by a player-made mod. However, in terms of functionality for scripting/behaviors, the Luau REPL does the job for now.

Okay, Luau this, API that, we're getting stuck here! Let's go through this quick:

The second point basically means that following the implementation of the Luau REPL, script loading and bundles, plus a gallery for bundles will be added. Bundles, in this case, refers to mod packages. However, at this stage, it will only be for loading scripts.

The third point appends gamemodes into the mix, meaning gamemode mod packages is thrown into the mix with the previous point.

The fourth and fifth point mention adding new classes and new assets to the game via prototype registration. Classes define what an object is, and assets likely refer to models. Prototype registration is a little more difficult to deduce, but I would have to assume it refers to these new classes and assets being recognized by the game and treated normally like other objects in-game.

One thing to keep in mind however, the biggest thing actually, is that this may have all changed already! In game development, things are constantly changing. Even preconcieved plans go through entire, unrecognizable changes in order to deliver certain features. So while this analysis DOES go through what the roadmap to modding looks like, it's also just as likely that everything that was spoken about here might not even be the same anymore! In other words: take my word with a grain of salt. Still, an analysis into how modding and scripting might arrive into Brickadia should provide some interesting insight into just how complicated, difficult, and time-consuming the process will be. So even if you feel like you might've been led on with what I've described before, WITHOUT FURTHER COMMENT, it's difficult to ascertain whether or not this whole plan is still the same.

Okay, that should take care of everything. I think I got away with making it seem like I know what I'm talking about by Googling a lot of this. HOWEVER, there is ONE last loose end to wrap up.

That's right, what am I going to talk about in the next blurb column? Well, it seems like a good deal of development media will likely be mod-related for the time being, at least in terms of Lua-related things. However, there was a new development blog that was just released! If you haven't seen it already, read it here: Devlog #8 - Scripting, wires upgrades, and the next big patch. We'll be taking a look at that blog in the next blurb!

Stay tuned!