Fixing and Finishing

To start with, perhaps the biggest news: the demo is, I think, pretty much complete!

Oh, there are a few minor things to do: disabling some debugging elements, further testing, and creating an actual distributable build, for three. But in the main, I believe that it's done! ^_^

Speaking very broadly, the work of the week just past can be divided into three categories: content, polish, and bug-fixing.

In content, first of all there were a number of small-ish things done: I did some final NPC-animating that had yet remained to be done; added in-game means to acquire the last two codex-entries that remained outstanding; wrote various bits of in-game text; and even added a simple splash-screen that's shown before the main menu.

But perhaps the most salient additions to the demo's content were made to its planets:

First of all, for some time both planets in the demo had shared the same topography. So, in the week just past I set about changing that, providing to the second planet a distinct topography of its own.



This did involve figuring out quite how I'd gone about doing so for the first planet--it had been a while, I fear! But I think that I managed, and now have a second demo-planet that I'm fairly happy with. ^_^

On the gameplay side of the planets, I at last added points-of-interest to them.

(Well, in all fairness I left the second planet with only a single point-of-interest. That point explains as I recall that, being a vertical slice, the demo only fully outfits one of the planets.)

Furthermore, I finally settled on how I might handle the puzzle that I intend to offer on each planet.

The goal of this puzzle I've had in mind for a while: to find that planet's "Great Spirit", from whom to gain aid in reaching the endgame.

What I was unsure of was what the puzzle itself might be. I had considered a few options of varying complexity, but what I ended up with was fairly straightforward--and remains within the extant mechanics of the game.

Simply put, the player explores the various points-of-interest, therein and elsewhere gathering clues that unlock new points-of-interest and new options amongst the points-of-interest. These then lead at last to the aforementioned "Great Spirit" in one of the points-of-interest.



And for the purposes of the demo I've set in place an instance of this puzzle. It's a simple one: it has only a handful of points and interactions, and relies on only a single off-planet clue. But I hope that it demonstrates how the mechanic is intended to work.

The next broad category, then, is that of polish.

First the map used for planets has gained icons for points-of-interest. This should, I hope, aid the player in finding their way to the points that they seek.



Second, I touched-up the icon used for the "mana-crystal generation" "metroidvania ability". It had previously been somewhat rough, I fear, and is now I think improved.

And third and finally, I added to the "linear traps" little puffs of dust that appear when they impact an obstacle and thus stop, intended to give that stop a greater sense of "impact".



And now we come to the final of the broad categories: bug-fixing.

And there was quite a bit of that. o_o;

At the start of the week just past, I believe, I had been aware of a single (major) bug, a crash related to save-games.

This I fixed... leading in turn to the discovery of more bugs related to saving and loading, and more beyond that. Aethereal walls were gone after reloading; switches didn't restore their control over doors; at least one encounter reloaded with no options available at all; and more besides!

But in the end I think that I got through them all, and saving and loading seems now to work as intended!

And as per usual, there were tweaks, changes, and fixes enacted in the week just past that don't seem worth detailing here!

That, then, is all for this week--and (actually, this time ^^; ) for this year! Stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^