Pleased to bring you news once more, this time we address a list of things I deem necessary to do before an (early) release can be discussed, and we touch onto what's been keeping me busy.
I've managed to achieve most of what I set out to do this week. Doors are now operational, but require some optimizations. Item pickups have been implemented, though I still need to make models and assess the situation about how exactly can a mapper specify things like weapon statistics.
I underestimated the amount of work it would take me to have the boss mechanics done, I wanted to have the boss fight take place on a completely different map than the ones leading to it for multiple reasons.
The big hiccup was realising I needed prebuilt maps (not randomly generated ones), which wasn't supported yet, leading to a lot of extending of the level editor code. This task, along with some real-life disturbances have kept me occupied for the remainder of my dedicated time.
Gotta to be said, the amount of time spent coding doesn't compare to the time making a test map. :P
As for my current outlook on things, here's a vague list of stuff I consider to be the biggest obstacles left to conquer before System Recovery is release ready:
- The menu is lacking in features for now
- Tutorial hints need adding
- Campaign mode requires finishing (just the boss and endgame now)
- User created level loading
- An Artificial Intelligence rewrite is in order (Enemies aren't exactly rocket scientists)
- Content (More enemy types, scenery objects, additional map themes and designs, etc)
Several more enemy types and doodads have already had their models made. I stand firmly by my approximation of a release by the end of summer. Gameplay footage is to be revealed very soon.
For next week I aim to have the first boss done along with several other complementary features.
See you then!
-Dan
