We've reached the home stretch and with a couple levels worth of art and level design left we're about done!
In terms of programming I probably have about a week left in order to get everything fully functional and working.
The shop screen, treasure maps, upgrade screen and world map are about 90% done. Saving and loading works great so far, both on Xbox and PC, and I'll keep stress testing it to make sure all the errors are caught and handled properly.
GUI / menu wise that's about it for programming. As for gameplay we've added lives so there's actually a penalty for dying if you do to much of it! Currently you have 10 lives and when you run out of those lives and start dying you will lose a percentage of the upgrade materials you've collected.
Personally I think 10 lives are too much and the most I've died in a level is about 4 times. We'll have to find a happy median based on feedback from playtesters. While on the subject of playtesting I've wanted to be active in the XNA playtest/peer review side of things but I've been too busy making sure everything works as it should.
Playing other games always gives me some insight to what things might go wrong or crash your game so you can catch them ahead of time. Until next time, Batman.
Jeffy B.
Looking good.
You know there's a common saying:
The first 90 % of work takes 10 % of the time. And, the last 10 % of work takes 90 %.
In any case, good luck!
I think I got most of the tough stuff out of the way! *crosses fingers*