Remember back to the previous Devlog where I said I wanted to do a number of things over several, small, incremental updates? Well, that didn't quite go as planned. First off, I started working on the updates about 2-3 weeks late. And of course there was a lot of time debugging when things didn't work as intended. But here's what I originally intended to do as individual updates.

• Update base screen resolution to 1024 x 768.
• Migrate settings storage out of PlayerPrefs and into a Settings.INI file.
• Separate button and axis assignments and give another visual guide on axis interpretation.
• Improve how the game handles Unity's axis reporting.
• Add version and edition labels to the main menu.

Of course, some of these items were going to be combined. For example, adding the version and edition labels to the main menu (which auto-updates every time the version changes) were supposed to be in the same update. But that still left about 3 or 4 updates that were supposed to happen over a slightly longer period of time. So how many items are left? Well, I forgot to change the settings code so that you can no longer select any resolution below 1024 x 768, but I might let that slide. That just leaves updating the help screen so that it's up to date with all of the changes that have been made. I am not looking forward to updating the help screen. I think I would rather create a bunch of help pages on Solar Lander's website and have the Help button send you there instead. Of course, for the Steam Edition, you can always press "Shfit+Tab" and get quick access to any guide you want, but that's not going to be an option for all editions of the game. And that also depends on me and others making guides on how to play the game. I believe the Solar Lander website (perhaps as a wiki) is the way to go. I've also thought of a few things I may need to update just in case someone somehow manages to break my game. So there will probably be at least one more update for that. Of course, if you find any bugs, do let me know.

Future Plans

Once I've finally finished all of the incremental updates to the Physics Update (hopefully, will be just one more update), I will be able to proceed with working on my game engine so that (at least for the Windows version at first) Solar Lander will no longer be on the Unity engine. Currently, it's the GUI library I'm writing that is the limiting factor, as it does not yet contain support for buttons, toggles, sliders, or other interactive GUI elements. The GUI system should be simple enough to complete. Currently, the non-Unity version of the game shows the splash screens (unless you skip them), then gets stuck on the loading screen. By the way, Solar Lander might be getting some loading screens for the Modding Update depending on how long those screens appear during testing. Also, for the Modding Update, I've typed-out an ASCII flow chart of game states to make it easier to keep track of the game's target architecture. That should make it simpler for me to implement all of the game states. Speaking of which, there will be changes to the in-game state machines so that if you or the command module crashes, you will hear the sound of the crash every time before you are taken to the game over screen. Also, I'm thinking of adding some floating text for when you land and redock telling you how many points you earned from those events. And even color-coding it to indicate if you beat your previous record. Also, I intend on implementing the self-destruct system for the modding update. Using it will trigger an instant game over, so don't actually use it.

Other Projects

By the way: The main reason why it took me about 2-3 weeks to get started on the first of the incremental updates is because I have many other projects to work on, and I've been rotating them. So I would work on one project for a bit, then another project, then another project. I will be continuing this pattern until all of my projects are complete. Since Solar Lander's Physics Update is still the current project in the rotation, the next of the incremental updates should happen soon(ish). But I believe after that, most of the v0.2.x updates will be taking place outside of the game, followed by a final v0.2.x update before I resume work on the Modding Update.

[ 2024-08-01 16:00:59 CET ] [ Original post ]