Greetings, Special Operators! Good morning, and Happy Weekend. I have an incremental update for you here. I spent most of my free time over the last week working out pages upon pages of math to improve the autogunner. As you may have noticed, it sometimes had some difficulty targeting chupas... The fact that they fly erratically at 3x the speed of other enemies didn't help. Anyway, I eventually solved the system of equations and came up with a valid symbolic solution that worked pretty well in the majority of cases. However, I was dismayed to discover that this symbolic solution, despite being quite accurate when it works, sometimes blows up (as equations are known to do). I put my thinking cap back on and came up with a better solution involving iterative approximation. Pure mathematicians would surely defecate on me for this, but I'm not a mathematician -- I'm an engineer! (Uh, kinda...). Anyway, it works quite well. I also cleaned up some of the approximations that the autogunner was working from, such as assuming that the radio waves emanate from the antenna centroid (they don't -- they come out of the antenna apex), or that they impact the enemy centroid (they don't -- they actually impact the enemy's bounding circle). This proved to be a critical factor that affects time of flight significantly, and the autogunner is greatly improved now. (If you don't know what the autogunner is, that's fine -- just press 'A', and all will be revealed!) ;-) There are probably other small changes here and there. For example, I added my buddy, Dr. Michael Krzyzaniak, to the credits, because he contributed some excellent feedback. Also, I reduced the number of Lightning Saucers to 1 for Level 6, to fit with the theme of adding, at most, one new enemy per level, then gradually increasing the count as the player progresses. This had been intended from the start, but it was such a minor thing that I only now got around to fixing it. In other news, we got featured on Steam's homepage as a result of being recommended by a popular curator in the Russian Federation (thank you, OFEN!), so I'm pretty stoked about that. For whatever reason, a lot of the interest in this game seems to be coming from our comrades in the former Soviet Union. Proof positive that, although our respective governments may not be getting along at the present moment, there is no reason why we cannot all still be friends! Scientific exploration knows no national boundaries, and when we are threatened with extinction from hostile extraterrestrials (as the PURELY FICTIONAL scenario in this game depicts...), I am hopeful that we will put our differences aside and learn to work together for the benefit of this "pale blue dot" we call home. Valve has already certified Ops as being ready to move out of Early Access and into Full Release. While I don't fully agree with that yet, it's a heartening endorsement and it does make me wonder how much more needs to be added to the game before we can declare it "finished". My current plan is to work on it for maybe a few more months, add some more cool features (global leaderboards, achievements, some variety in power-ups, etc.), and then shift my focus toward Ops Mobile. Part of the beauty of this project is its lack of ambition. It's a concept game, intended from the start to be a mindless, casual arcade experience; similar in character to classics from decades past, like Space Invaders or Missile Command. It will never be the next Doom Eternal, or Quake IV -- it's not trying to be. At some point, I will want to move on to other projects. And while I don't feel ready to do that just yet, I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Releasing a multi-platform commercial game as a software dev team of one has been challenging enough. Maybe next time around, I will set my sights a little higher. Ops does not have to be "the game to end all games"! That said, I'm pretty happy with how wonderfully it came together, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it for you. If you have ideas for improvement, please do share them with us! Ad astra, per aspera! ~ Pete

Dear Friends, This morning, I pushed Ops v29 to Steam. This should be the final build prior to pre-publication review by Valve. As you may know, the game is scheduled to launch on Thursday, August 15th. HUGE THANKS to everyone who provided insightful comments, bug reports, and suggestions for improvement! There may be additional builds prior to publication, so please do continue to send me your honest feedback. The biggest change in v29 is the introduction of the F-317: a highly classified stealth bomber aircraft that delivers airdrops of power-ups to the player. There is currently only one power-up available: an induced gamma emissioon (IGE) warhead, based around a hafnium nuclear isomer, that kills all visible enemies through a flash of gamma radiation. To signal the F317 to drop the bomb, it is necessary to hit it with a radio wave. Likewise, to trigger the warhead to detonate, it is necessary to shoot the package as it's falling. A challenge? Absolutely! But you can do it!!
ALSO, development of Ops Mobile is officially underway, so watch out for that in the Google Play Store soon! We now have a working port of the game running in Android 14 on a Google Pixel 8 Pro. It still needs work, and we don't want to fork the project too soon, so the Steam version of the game will take priority for now. If interested in Ops Mobile, please do give us a shout! Will it release for iOS as well? Possibly... That depends on the level of interest. Stay tuned! Cheers, ~ Pete http://www.vlaops.com