So, the stats are now set to update when the players defeat an animal, since they earn upgrades each time they defeat one. However, the calculations for how each stat interacts with the others regarding attack procedures and regeneration, dodging etc. has been giving me a hard time. Strength afftects the damage given to another, constitution and stamina affect the total hitpoints, speed and agility affect dodge ability and on and on.. It was very fun designing the interactions though. :) But now I finally got all of the calculations correct, with base defaults in case the calculations would go out of a certain range. For example, If a player is attacked and by a creature with low strength, the damage taken is decreased by a fraction of the player's stamina. However, if the player's stamina is much higher than the creatures strength, then the player would receive NEGATIVE damage... So, I put a min range on the final damage output, to make sure it does at least SOME damage, but definitely not negative damage.

Okay, all of the various components of the game have been added and I've tested them all individually as well as together. So, now I'm adding additional animals to the game. Until now there was only 1 predator (a giant spider) and 1 prey (a lizard). Now there are several predators and many prey animals and I've adjusted their stats and abilities according to their type and hopefully balanced the game overall. Of course at the beginning the players should definitely go after only the prey, or smallest of the predators. As they gain stats, they will be able to defeat stronger and stronger animals.

O man... As I played Furry Kingdoms with my kids, and they played each other over and over again, we found quite a few bugs. We all really enjo playing the game, but one bug in particular has been making it unplayable. Sometimes, an animal will kill a player and just keep attacking them after they are dead, so they can never regenerate and revive as they should. And other times, the animal stops attacking after the player dies, but stays right next to them and then attacks immediately after the player revives, so there is still no chance to get away. This has been very frustrating, but I finally figured it out and put in checks to make sure both the player and the animal both remove each other from their target lists properly, which solved the problem. So, aside from one or two small bugs, then game is finished!!! Woo!

Well, over the past year of working on these indie projects, I've realised that this isn't going to work out for me. Although I work well on my own and I'm very dedicated, I need the structure and focus of a regular work environment. I'm not able to make a living on my small projects as they are and I will need more experience to move into a developer position. To that effect, I've decided to take some dvice from a good friend, and redirect my efforts towards software testing. I've had quite a lot of experience in that area through working on my own projects, but it wasn't planned and orderly as it would be in a professional role. I am now looking for a college where I can learn software testing and get certified, so I can hopefully continue my efforts towards fulfilling my dream of working in the high-tech field (game development would be the best!)

So, that was fast! I signed up with Israel Professional College at the end of last month and began learning software testing. I've been learning very hard every day and I've finished the main material in order to take the certification test with ISTQB. I have signed up to take the test on the 27th of this month and am now working on practice tests and reviewing the information over and over again to make sure I have everything down. The classes with IPC are in Hebrew of course, so I also joined a course on Udemy that teaches over 160 worth of information on software testing, automated testing, tools etc. The plan is to make sure that I learned everything properly in the Hebrew courses. If I find discrepencies between what I learned and what is in the English Udemy course, I'll know that I need to dig deeper in those areas to make sure I understand it properly. Wish me luck!

Baruch Hashem! I passed the ISTQB certification test! It was actually even harder than the practice tests, which were already quite hard. It's not that I didn't know the material, but the way they ask the questions, they are purposely very difficult to discern what the actual question is and which answer fits best. Many times none of the answers were exactly correct, and you had to understand the nuance in order to realise which answer should be given. Very frustrating. Now that I've passed the test, I've decided to begin some freelance work with Test IO, which requires learning their procedures and taking a few small tests... more tests... I will also of course continue to learn more skills and review the testing material over and over to ensure I haev it all down well.

Some of the skills I've been working on are SQL, JSON, Unix and HTML/CSS. I have worked quite often with HTML and CSS so those aren't difficult. But I've only worked with them on the most basic projects, so I'm not fluent with them. I've learned the basic commands for Unix and SQL, but I will continue practicing them now and again so that I don't forget what I've learned. JSON I actually dealt with some in Unity while working on a save game mechanic and it is quite similar to Jave/C# and creating objects, so I just need more practice with that to get better over time. I also want to learn about API testing with Postman and automated testing with Selenium, but I'm just not ready for that yet. For now I will continue practicing creating epics, test cases and defect reports in Jira.

After learning so much so quickly, I'm am still working on processing all of the information but I feel confident that I can take on the responsibilities of a job in software testing now. The more practice I get, especially if it is in a professional role, the faster and better I will get. Looking forward to getting my first job in QA!