Progress Report 4

What’s been going on since Release?

I'm excited to have released the first decent Patch a few days ago which fix a lot of small things and greatly improve the HUD. I’ve been compiling a list based on your feedback and addressing it. There are still things to do, the primary focus is general improvements based on your feedback right now. The HUD was pretty bland before, and the HUD background was too transparent- transparency is adjustable now. the HUD took up too much space, some buttons didn’t match the style of the Game, there were a few bugs and some grammar mistakes, most of which are taken care of. I’m still working on the HUD, but it’s getting pretty close to something I’m okay with. The Game should be very stable with this newest Patch. I haven’t found much wrong with the Gameplay for a few days (I try to get a Game or two in every day).

Leaderboard System

This is the next feature I want to add to the Game, which I’m just getting started on. I’m hoping to release this with the Tutorial replacement, a couple weeks down the road, but we’ll see how that goes. The first version will be Local only, you will be able to compare with anyone who plays on your installation, then an online version so you can compare scores with anyone who plays.

Achievements

To be honest, I was so consumed with finishing the Game that I totally overlooked achievements. Thanks to feedback I was reminded and I think it’s important for a Game like this. It is something that shouldn’t be too hard to add, but it’ll take some time. I’ve got a running list of achievements that will be added once I get to this, if you have any suggestions, don’t hesitate to mention it. Achievements are a pretty high priority, though first I want to get the HUD finished, generally polish and balance what is here already and add in a Local Leaderboard system.

The Tutorial

I was very unhappy with how the Tutorial turned out (why I never made that video about it), and I’ve gotten some good feedback about how to make it better. I’ve made some minor fixes to the current Tutorial, though I’m not putting too much effort into it since I’m totally replacing it with a tips style Tutorial. No slide shows, no locked navigation, no forcing the player to Build their base a certain way; at the time of this writing the current Tutorial does this and force feeds you way too much information all at once. It just isn’t done well.

The initial part of the new Tutorial guides you on where to place your Headquarters without limiting you. You can still Build wherever you want. Then it suggests how to use your initial 8 Population. After that it becomes adaptive, it keeps an eye out for imbalances in your Base and helps you to know what to Build as you progress, also telling you why it is making the suggestion. It will let you know when Available Population is at 0 or negative, showing you where to buy a House. If you are losing Food or Food is at 0 it will show you where to get a Farm. If you haven’t upgraded anything by a certain Wave it will make sure you know about upgrades, if you haven’t expanded your Build area it will tell you about Supply Depots, which expand where you can Build. That’s just a few of the things it watches for, there are more. This way you can go straight into playing on any Map without playing through a dedicated Tutorial first, you can use it until the Game makes sense and turn it off any time, in or out of Game, or you can turn it on in the middle of the Game if you feel you are missing something. I’m about half way done with it, it’ll be a couple weeks before it’s finished, this is something I revisit ever few days when I need a challenge- the adaptive part is tricky but I think it’s a pretty neat system!

So anyway, that’s it for this Report. Things are coming along at a steady pace. I’m excited to get moving and get this Game finished! I hope this first patch shows that your opinions matter! Expect another Report in about 2 Weeks, I’m hoping to have another Patch out before then. Anyway, take care folks!