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21 November Development Update


Chris

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I think it’s time to give a quick update on what we’re working on at the moment and our future plans.

As we've mentioned before, we're aiming to have the game completed for the end of December. We're still unsure if we'll hit that deadline, to be honest. Delays to any part of the game, or even complications due to Christmas holidays mean that we could miss it. Ultimately it is an internal deadline that we can move if we have to…we just think it’d be nice to have the game done this year!

You can probably see from the changelogs that we’re making fairly rapid progress these days. The artwork is progressing well and is likely to be finished for the end of the year, as the tiles are nearly all done and we’re working on the alien analysis / interrogation images at the moment that are the only remaining part of the Xenopedia.

On the coding front, there’s not really any massive features left to implement. It’s mostly bugfixes, cleaning up systems that aren’t working correctly and balancing what is already there.

GJ is working hard on the AI at the moment and just today put in a big update. Most interesting is tweakable AI variables for each AI race and rank, accessible (and documented) in a text file anyone can edit. We’ve also partially implemented AI grenades, which they should now be using to trash your base in Base Defence missions. Provided we don’t encounter any major bugs in it, that’ll all be in V20 Ex.6.

We’re working on clearing up the bugs in the rest of the game. There’s quite a few of them and some of them (aliens shooting through floors) are quite major, but our ground combat coder has been busy writing his end of the AI interface recently so he’s not been able to fix them all yet.

There’s quite a few little features or tweaks to make in the combat still, including testing out a sight system that only reveals what is currently in a unit’s line of sight - so if a unit turns or is killed, vision is immediately lost on those tiles. I suspect this will make the missions feel a bit more claustrophobic and reduce the effectiveness of long-range sniping (both good things) but we’ll see how it works in practice. If we don’t like it, we can just revert to the old model.

Aaron is balancing the AI and plugging away at the maps at the moment, leaving only the Terror missions (Soviet and Western) left to do now. General game balance seems in a good place, but there are still things for us to fix up there too. We’re still hoping to add some Tundra tileset maps to the game, and some Abduction missions too, but we’ll see. It's probably unlikely to happen unless we're delayed into January.

At my end, I’m mostly working on the new UI at the moment. There’s a lot of pop-up windows to reskin in our nicer style, and there’s still a number of usability issues with the new UI. A lot are to do with screen resolution and we’re looking into fixing them.

I’m also working on the 48-page Xenonauts Art Book for the Kickstarter backers. Unsurprisingly it is proving to be a lot of work, but it needs to be done. It’ll make a nice memento for the project for the team, and also we’ll probably make it available for sale to anyone that wants to buy one once they’ve been sent out to the Kickstarter backers.

Overall, progress remains good and I expect us to get another three weeks of solid work in before the team starts to dissipate for the festive season and things become patchier. If the game isn't finished by the end of the year, we won't be far away!

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I tend to think games should take as long as they need to take.

Christmas would make a good time to release for the sake of the company, with high sales and all that...

Yet in the long term, masterpieces always run over, and always take a long time to get just right.

Don't succumb to pressure. Build the game that we'll all appreciate. A year or two from now, no one will remember what month you released. They'll remember that it was finished on release, and done well, too.

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It won't be a Christmas release either way. Actual release will take place a month or so after the game is finished, as print magazines need a lead time and we'll want to do a marketing push.

That is some good forethought.

On another note, take as long as you need. Too many games get released not completely finished. (I'm looking at you EW) :P

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I suspect this will make the missions feel a bit more claustrophobic and reduce the effectiveness of long-range sniping (both good things) but we’ll see how it works in practice.

Are snipers regarded as being over-powered? I personally found them to be (by far) the least effective combatants up until the introduction of flight packs to get them onto the roofs. Machine gunners were the big-time killers for me, not snipers.

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Take the time you and the team need, Chris. This is Goldhawk's first release. You want it to have as few bugs and to be as polished as possible for launch. You want future customers to automatically give you that rep of "even though it's a small indie, they've never made a bad game", and a lot of customers stay loyal to companies who treat their product's quality and their customers with more respect and don't cave-in to "wanting to meet this quarter's profits". Put your game first and the deadline second and your current customers will remember you for it and pass that knowledge forward to future customers who will buy your games because of it and that attitude in development.

For those of us who have been here forever another few months won't matter at all. Take your time, brother.

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Speaking of bugs, I recently took a Hunter Scout Car in on an Alien base assault, but couldn't even get it through the first corridor. I tried C4ing/Alenium Rocketing the crap out of the place to take down any offending props, but nothing seemed able to have my poor armored coffin drive past the obstruction.

What's odd is that I was perfectly able to drive it through the first time I loaded the map, but could not on returning to the beginning autosave (game decided to crash).

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You should try abusing the game mechanics m8 :) I use quick scout guys and scout car to find the aliens, once my snipers are in position far from alien preying eyes) I gun them down with the snipers. They do massive dmg long range as well as causing suppression occasionally. HMG need close range to be 1 shot (5 shots actually) 1 kill.

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