I thought I'd put this out here to give a general idea of MTR's development.
If you are just interested in where this process stands now, head on down to the "Where It Is" section.
The number one limiter on how fast this gets developed is time. In a perfect world, I could drop everything to work on this all the time, but sadly this is not the case. The team making this is two people- myself (Thundermagnet) and my close friend bindernews. That being said, I generally only go to his coding mastery if I am in quite a pickle. (So actual development the vast majority of the time is really all me).
Where It Has Been
Pressing to this point has been one of the harder things to do in my life. It has taken months upon months of hard work, time, and effort. Unsurprisingly, coding a full fledged game mostly by yourself is NOT EASY. Making matters worse, I never sat down originally thinking "I want to release this on Steam", so MTR was originally not even designed with this in mind. There have been two major refactors, countless bugs, months of implementation work, and of course, weeks of coding burnout, where I could not even look at the game source code without getting a headache.
MTR interestingly started as a little project for my mom. She mentioned how much she loved an old game called "Mine Trap"- and after hunting it down on an outdated computer we had (it only works on Windows 2000 as far as I can tell), I learned enough of the game to rebuild it for her to enjoy once again. The early stages of MTR had no flashy menu, no high scores, not even arcade mode. The game would start and instantly go to what is now labelled as Classic Mode, you'd go through about 15 levels, and then it would just... end. The bugs were catastrophic, the graphics were drawn by me and at 4x lower resolution as to what it is now, and there was still no intention of releasing the game.
MTR stayed at this state for about 4 years. I had no intention of fixing it or the like, because it was just a side project, forgotten on my computer. However, one day I ran it, played it, and was disappointed in myself. Obviously, I could have done better! So I did the first round of "bug fixes", which ended up being me implementing more broken features than anything else. I once again dropped the project, because I still did not care all that much about it. There was nothing personal to me about the game.
Then... the dreaded COVID hit.
My job essentially had everyone not come to work for three months- but as a contracted worker, I still got paid. What did I do with this free time? Well, the first two months were exhausting everything in my Steam library. Only once I got to the point of total boredom with every game (and an overwhelming want to actually accomplish something I could be proud of in life) did I decide to tinker again with MTR. But this time, I kept going. I started dumping hours and hours of each day into working on this. The main menu and classic mode really took shape during this time, and I ironed out hundreds of bugs. Then I decided I wanted to scale the game up. All sprites at this point were 32x32, and it looked rather bad. Okay, very bad. So I hired an artist (tepignacio) and he provided some more relevant art. This is where the first major refactor of the game took place. I had to rewrite hundreds of lines of code and remake every single level which existed at the time, because I had not made it all to work with images of that size. Another refactor followed shortly after to make it so I could more easily adjust core aspects about the game and have most things read from a easily adjusted set of variables. Anyways, I don't want to get more technical here because no one really cares about that. After those two refactors, I decided to make Arcade Mode, so I could add my own twist on the game. It is interesting to see where the game has gone, because the Classic Mode levels have been complete since before this chaos known as Arcade Mode started. But long story short for the last few months, the vast majority of the core game is now complete.
Where It Is
You may be wondering, "Well, if it is almost entirely complete, why is the release date over two months away?" I answer this with two words: good question!
There are two main reasons this is taking so long at this point. One, time is valuable and I have a lot less time on my hands than I did five months ago. Code takes a long time, but I also have been busy with making music for many of the levels. Two, and more importantly, I REFUSE to release anything lesser than my vision for what this game can be. Bugs exist, we all know this. But I want to have a complete, almost-perfect product, because I seriously love working on this and never thought I'd have this much passion for an whimsical arcade-style game.
As it stands, MTR has about ten known bugs, and a few quality of life features I still want to complete. While I understand the scoring system, most anyone else who plays would be entirely confused as to what points they are getting and why. The same goes for the bonus system. Once I implement these, I will feel much better about the state of the game.
Where It Is Going
A lot of the future of MTR after release depends on reception. If interest in the game meets a certain threshold, I do have plans to implement some really crazy ideas, such as procedurally-generated lava chase levels, add some challenge levels (such as the original version of Arcade 99, All of the Above, and more. As for right now, however, I am primarily focused on completion and release, so this is all just some food for thought right now.
Closing Thoughts
First, if anyone wants to see the game in its current state, I have done a few playthroughs, and they are posted on my YouTube channel here.
Alternatively, here is some of the highlights...
Additionally, if anyone is interested, here is a link for the game's Discord server. I am always accepting new insults for when people die. :) (Or if you have questions/thoughts to share with me, I am most easily reached there.)
Discord Server Link
Thank you for your interest and support for this incredible journey, and I look forward to crossing this long awaited finish line on November 6th. Until then, well, I suppose you should start prepping yourself for an intense, whimsy-filled experience known as Mine Trap Reborn.