Looking Back

I will keep the retrospective short this week. Reasons include the first alpha release and a hangover.

Another week of system building has gone by. From last week’s menu re-implementation I still needed to complete the actual placement of objects in the world. With that done, I can now put in new placeable objects in minutes. As another UI improvement I have made context-sensitive button icon displays on interactable objects. The system is still not completely fleshed out, but already improves usability for new players.

The big task this week has been enabling NPC behaviour based on tasks which they are signed up for. This meant coming up with a code architecture which lets me define behaviours for each task condition. Right now, there is only one behaviour: build an object (currently a tent). But again, I can now easily extend that to match any task and condition. Here’s a little sequence showing how objects are placed and NPCs haphazardly build their tents:

Looking Forward

Today I am releasing the first, extremely early and unfinished alpha version. I hope to get some bits of good feedback. If you are interested in a first look or even helping me out, consider registering on this site. This will get you access to the forum where I will post download information for any releases.

Next week I plan to improve NPC behaviour to make them look more alive. No more segway-driving lamp posts! Of course I will also keep track of testing feedback and work on the most pressing issues.