Hi Everyone,
This is Chris, the lead developer. I'm so pleased to announce that after a considerable hiatus, we were able to find the time and resources to integrate a few features we've been wanting to add for a long time. One of the biggest points of feedback we received was the somewhat tedious menu system - we made an artistic decision to try and go for an analog / diegetic feel with the menus, and that became frustrating for players, particularly with the DLC content. The first thing we did was create a simple action sheet that can be accessed by holding down "levels" or by hitting "help" and pressing the "7" key, which now has a hamburger icon on it.
This menu will provide access to an ordered list of all the DLC levels for easy navigation, as well as.... a new game mode just in time for the school year!
I had always wanted to develop an engine that could procedurally generate levels for the game, but wasn't sure how to approach it. Eventually, I got frustrated and just started tinkering, After a lot of trial and error, this new build represents the first pass at that engine. It doesn't support the OEIS function, and much work needs to be done to improve my approach, but it seemed to give me a good challenge when I was play testing it.
As far as adding more levels to the main game (beyond the DLC) the reality is that very few players, extremely few in fact, are ever able to finish the main campaign - so we thought taking the approach of building an engine that can adapt to a difficulty the player is comfortable with and dynamically create new levels would be a better long term goal.
I'd like to stress that this new play mode was done in a kind of wonky way, I'm almost a bit embarrassed to share the code (which I will update soon) because it does some sloppy things and gets semi-mixed results, so I welcome any ideas on how to better generate levels. I'll go into detail on how it works in a later post that I'll make sure to share here.
Also, out of an abundance of caution, I've created a new public branch called "previous" where the previous build can be accessed just in case there are some bugs. We obviously play tested a fair amount, but you never know!
Last, I'd like to say I love this game, and have loved my time working on it. I am so thankful to the rich community of players who have engaged with the project and supported us. Your involvement and feedback has been invaluable and is always deeply appreciated. Please feel free to reach out to our non-profit any time ([email protected]) or on twitter at @cinqmarsmedia. We always love to hear from you, even if you're just saying "hi"!
My Deepest Thanks,
- Chris
