Hi all.
Happy summer to those northern hemisphere dwellers - it's winter down here in New Zealand and a bit chilly too.
However time for a new build to be uploaded.
Firstly, loading times (apart from the first load into the main menu) have been reduced.
Seems that particle data did not need to be read again between levels ;-)
The final two levels (26 and Epilogue) are 'finished'.
'Finished' means pending extra artwork for the static cutscenes and a general review of course.
But this is still a milestone as it means that TU2 game dev is now moving into its final stages.
Spent today playing through the entire game just to pick up any major issues before uploading this build.
There's still a boat load of bugs, tweaks and balancing to fix and admittedly I set infinite upgrade points and powershards to speed my playthrough - but I got a sense of how the full game 'feels'. It's clunky in terms of graphics and general production values - it's a one dev game after all - but it works and I feel it is more than just the sum of its parts. I guess the proof will be when it's released as a complete work.
Known Major Issues:
Memory footprint needs to be reduced - can cause a mem error later in the game when loading a music file to play for example.
Armour levels lost between levels - level 10 sees upgrades reset. Need this sort of stuff to be persistant.
Beams between distant pylons are not connecting. Doesn't affect gameplay but a worldbuilding problem that'll need to be addressed.
Triggered Atheist has let me know that the game has issues on his rig using integrated graphics. Not sure if this can be fixed (sorry TA) - at the very least it means I should update the min/recommended specs to include a dedicated graphics card as being a minimum.
That's all for the moment. Hope you all have a good month.
P.S. if you want an authentic kiwi t-shirt for summer, go to redbubble.com and search for 'madjack'.