The entirety of today has been about fixing the player controller and the animation played when moving directionally. I created a character sprite sheet that has a character moving using 4 frames in each direction. The issue I was having with the player controller were the animations not stopping when the movement stopped  or playing incorrectly. After multiple attempts I finally adjusted the animations and the character so that the animations would start and stop correctly, but I messed up the controller to where it would not handle diagonal movement correctly.

I ended up just scrapping the controller I used and just using the built in Godot Vector movement system then playing the correct animation. THIS IS WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE THE WHOLE TIME. Using the vector for movement makes the code a lot shorter and I was able to separate out the animations using the vector x and y cords. If you are having the same issue I was the following code is what I ended up with to get both the player controller and animations working together correctly. The Input.get_vector function returns a vector (coordinate), based on the input provided. When no input is pressed the resulting vector is (0,0); when left is pushed (-1,0); when right is pushed (1,0); when up is pushed(0, -1); when down is pushed (0,1). I can use this return value to play the animation according to which vector is returned, the reason I have it set for > or < 0 is to give animation to diagonal movements which will return a non zero vector. If I wanted custom animations for diagonal movement I would just need to add additional statements for when both vectors are above 0.

I need to make the mini game for the pining as I could have a demo of that out where a player could sample some of the different bugs. After I get that baseline mechanic done I want to thoroughly nail down the story, theme, and vibes for the game as well as the gameplay loop. I am torn between having a mixture of the placement mechanic from sticky business with a cooking mama-esque pinning minigame, or setting the story in a fantasy setting with fictional bugs that the player would need to puzzle solve to find the locations as well as how to pin it properly (different materials, different wait times, etc) like in the game Botany Manor. Will likely get some input from others in that regard. My fiancé also had the idea to make it a horror game where the insects become slowly more mutated until you are pinning what looks like a tiny human, interesting concept but not the vibes I am going for.