Since yesterday, we're at version 143:
A part of our team will now be off for Christmas, while another (the atheists ːsteammockingː) will continue on the project – but will take the time off at the change of the date from 2025 to 2026.
The progress in the recent days has been mostly with the texts and sounds, as we play and discover the instances where both need changes. Sometimes it says "click to assign" but there's a confirmation button, so it should say "click the confirm button to assign"; sometimes there's a sound that's overwhelming or not pleasant when played on repeat. All of these issues cannot be forced, and we work on them as a part of the everyday routine.
From the issues that prevent us from opening the Playtest, we have 3:
* the updated "pay to play" interface for playing cards that cost resources
You can do this now – we're successfully playing competitive games every day – but we designed a better flow, and it takes time to bring it to life.
* the move from peer to peer to playing on the server
Similarly to Gremlins, Inc., we're looking to have a ladder and ranked sessions. An open question for now is whether we will also have 2 servers – Asia and Europe – or one will suffice. Imagine if we could keep everything on the Amsterdam machine, and everyone will compete in the same leaderboard? We need some work to test this hypothesis.
* the main menu update
The current main menu is the remainder of the times when we designed this game for Nintendo Switch (which actually means we should be better equipped for Steam Deck these days...). We did not touch it until everything else was ready.
Once these 3 items are solved, we're going for the Playtest, and then the demo – hopefully in time with the Board Game Fest here on Steam.
Happy holidays, and here's to one more step towards the release.
PS
Chinese. The translation into Simplified Chinese is the 4th issue we need to solve before the Playtest! ːchinaː