🧠 Win • Challenge • Next

• Win: The Godot → Zig port reached a huge milestone — gdzig is running smoothly and the simulation core is nearly 100 % native.
• Challenge: The TOML port was incomplete and needed several file rewrites before integration could succeed.
• Next: Continue the full simulation port to Zig, building on the completed manager migration.

⚙️ 100 % Zig Migration Complete (23 / 23 Managers)

All 23 game managers are now fully ported from GDScript to Zig.

• Final additions: ZigAIDirectorManager, ZigAIEmpireManager, and ZigQuestManager
• 333 tests passing (256 Zig + 77 GUT) — zero compiler warnings, zero leaks

📊 TOML Configuration Migration

Gameplay configuration has moved entirely to TOML:

• 22 TOML files now act as the single source of truth for balance, events, and systems
• Legacy JSON assets archived with complete documentation

🚀 Simulation System Track 2

The Turn Simulator foundation is now live:

• 23 phases planned — 4 implemented (resource generation, upkeep, colony growth, research)
• Economic feedback loops and performance benchmarks already show 20–50× speed gain

Track 2 Progress: 21 % complete and climbing.

🧩 Testing, Docs & Performance

• 333/333 tests passing (100 %) across Zig + GUT
• Documentation reorganized (72 → 57 files)
• Hybrid Zig/GDScript architecture yielding major speed ups

6 000 lines of Zig code, 2 300 lines of tests, 2 500 lines of new docs — 31 commits in 24 hours.

🪐 The Big Picture

Track 1 (Migration): ✅ Complete
Track 2 (Simulation): 🚧 Underway (21 %)

The simulation framework is ready to handle complex turn-based economics and AI strategy at empire scale.

CTA: Learn more at MrPhilGames.com

Today was a tale of two projects — one in the depths of space, the other in the heart of the classroom.

Stellar Throne – The Bug War

Work on Stellar Throne felt like navigating an asteroid field with a faulty nav computer. The main nemesis? The Combat UI’s combat log, which decided to also control the battlefield zoom. Imagine trying to scroll through battle events and suddenly you’re looking at the galaxy from light-years away.

The fix meant tearing apart the screen infrastructure, carefully reassembling it without losing functionality. Once the battlefield stopped “breathing” under my mouse wheel, I ported the same fix to the main starmap. Smooth scrolling across the board now.

Other combat encounters:

• Mysterious spontaneous ship damage (bug or stealth weapon… to be determined).

• Mouse clicks going on strike after combat.

• Destroyed ships clinging to life visually.

It’s not glamorous work, but it’s the kind of quiet victory that makes the rest of the game shine.

ClaudeCraft – Building the Blueprint

Meanwhile, on the teaching front, I made big strides with ClaudeCraft, my upcoming course on AI-assisted game development. Modules 7–10 got their teaching guides, the course outline got tightened to stay laser-focused on Claude workflows (no drifting into generic gamedev land), and I even expanded it to 11 modules with some bonus content for extra punch.

I also whipped up a shiny roadmap image and, in the process, felt the course concept click into place — a clear path from AI novice to confident AI-powered game creator.

I’m still chewing on the challenge of reaching the right audience, but the bones of the course are solid and the waitlist is live at ClaudeCraft.com.