Anyone who looks back through Cogmind's
release history will see that I've always placed a lot of importance on maintaining good QoL. I love adding content and mechanics (and have oh so many plans...) but the priority is always to take care of the little things that help improve what we already have, and since we have a
lot of new players now--over 1,000 on the
leaderboards (counting only named players), it's natural that the influx has brought with it a lot of requests we can reasonably accommodate.
So that's much of what I've been working on this week.
Beta 3.1 is around the corner, and focuses on quality of life among other small changes and features (including of course the Cloud support I talked about
last time).
Small features like optional automated inventory sorting:
I was actually going to release earlier this week, but kept postponing it because there was a
really odd bug which didn't make any sense given the source code, so I thought it might be the compiler and couldn't confirm that, and basically had, and still have, no idea where it's coming from. An old game file I no longer use (and since deleted) kept popping up out of nowhere, recreating itself when there is clearly no code in the game to do that. This file affects the operation of the game so it was rather important to figure out, but it's completely random. I thought it was the compiler using old code but rebuilding from scratch didn't stop it. Anyway, I filled an entire page with notes about this bug trying to figure it out, as I encountered it a few times each day, adding more and more tests in between working down the list of other features that we wanted eventually anyway. I never did find the bug, but release can wait no longer so I coded a workaround that will at least prevent it from screwing things up should it appear again. Strangely enough, this file didn't appear at all in the past day...
ProgressOther progress from the week, best demonstrated in images:
New on-map popups for very important ALERT log messages!
These are accompanied by a very obvious alarm sound, because despite being so bright in the message log ALERT messages were still easy to miss, but they often have serious implications for survivability. If you want to keep the good old "what where'd that assault ARC come from?!?!" experience, there is a way to turn map alerts off :P
Coverage visualization graphs are now accompanied by their specific percentages in Tactical HUD mode:
In case you don't want to use the 'v' key/button, Ctrl-CMB now works to toggle the volley range visualization:
Explosive machine details are now
free. No more Structural Scanner required, just inspect the machine:
The mouse can also now inspect walls and doors via Ctrl-RMB (or just RMB if the info window is already open).
Good strategy sometimes calls for knowing what it'll take to create new doors. (Though know that unless it's a special wall, melee weapons and non-EM cannons are usually enough to do the trick.)
More Coverage!
- Cogmind got two pages in the November issue of Canard PC, the "leading video game magazine in France, Belgium and Switzerland." They rate it "Sans Danger," meaning it's safe to buy even though it's in Early Access :)
- I did an interview for Indie Hackers, where I answered questions/wrote about things like marketing, revenue, creativity, advice for others, and Cogmind/my background. (This is a site for entrepreneurs, so it's not really about the game itself.)
- I also did a little interview for Goomba Stomp. This one's more about Cogmind, and also roguelikes in general.
Upcoming ScheduleBeta 3.1 is coming very soon (like this weekend soon), about which I'll have a separate post covering the changelog and release notes.
Then there are some things coming up which will slow development for a bit. I have to spend yet more time at the hospital (the situation worsened recently, but there are new leads and therefore hope to get rid of this problem for good), and in addition to that I'll actually be out of country visiting the US for a while. I have to head over there for Cogmind-related business reasons (of all things...), but decided since we have family over there celebrating the holidays I may as well bring everyone along and stay a little longer. Trips that far are expensive, anyway, might as well make it more worthwhile! Everyone's always asking us to visit but I've always been too busy working on Cogmind to make the trip xD
I'd prefer to not be away having only recently released the Steam version, but perhaps finally being somewhere I'm not tempted by my full workstation here would be good for the recovery, too! In any case, during this period I'll certainly be available online as usual, just not able to reply nearly as fast as I normally do :P
Unless something really interesting happens, since there won't be as much progress I will probably skip the next two SITREPs before returning to our normal weekly schedule.
Really looking forward to December, when I'll push through all the remaining high-priority and near-term items so we can move on to much more significant features!
Since a lot of the relevant SITREP discussion happens on Steam rather than in the forums, for reference here's a link to this same news on Steam.
