Hey all, so its been awhile! Im back at my day job, so theres been less dev time, but Ive still been busy.
First up, controller support. I dont have fully customizable controls setup, but its now possible to play the game with just an Xbox controller. I assume other controllers work too, I just dont have any others to test with. It definitely took some work to retrofit the UI to work that way, since its a different paradigm. Instead of having a mouse cursor that you move around the screen (and always exists), one button is in focus at a time, and moving a joystick moves you to the next button. Godots UI system really helps, but you still have to wire everything together. That, and make sure something is always in focus, otherwise the controller basically gets stranded in the UI and cant select anything. The most complex part is that the joystick has to handle both navigating the map and navigating the UI. Its not terribly complex, basically it just needs to track if the player is actively using the UI, and allow the player to back out of the UI with the B button and give up focus of any buttons, just not completely trivial either.
The controller setup also means we can properly support the Steam Deck and Im happy to announce it works! Theres a few quirks to fix: I need to change the screen resolution scaling math, and at startup the steam deck compatibility tool gets confused and tries to run the game as a Windows app, rather than the native Linux app that it is. However, theres no major problems, it actually works! The last major thing to talk about is the demo. Its been available on itch.io for awhile, but itll be coming to Steam sometime in mid-September. Its uploaded and working already, so why wait to push it live on Steam? Marketing. Im very much not an expert, but based on new changes Valve has made for Steam, as well as the actual expert opinions Ive read, releasing the demo on Steam kind of counts as a game release now. Like, demos can now come up as new and trending in the store soon after releasing, and theres other algorithmic advantages for new titles which now include demos. So, I have to put my best foot forward for releasing the demo or at least, get a few more things together to be super presentable. Theres some parts of the game itself I want to get done, but the biggest thing is the actual store art, a.k.a. the capsule art. (Valve doesnt even remember why they call it that.) Ive commissioned an artist to make that, so therell be a bit of wait time there, but then itll be the big reveal of a demo thats already published. Lol. Anyway, if you made it this far, thanks for reading!