Howdy!
As the new year has begun, I wanted to give an update for the roadmap for FREM Sprite32! going forward. After releasing the game in October, I pushed several quality of life updates and small fixes based on the initial feedback, so thanks to everyone who participated in the community discussions, left a review, and/or messaged me directly with their feedback! After taking a much needed break during the December/January holiday stretch, I'm ready to get back to working on a few new additions and improvements.
Here's what I've got planned in upcoming builds:
- Steam Achievements. This is probably the most requested feature, and I aim to do it. It's a bit of work to come up with them and add them to the Steam back end, so this may take me a bit to finalize. I have several jotted down in a spreadsheet, but I still need to come up with more. I also need to revisit the Godot library I previously explored, to see if my build requirements have been resolved. I'll be digging into this in the coming weeks.
- Updates to the Manual, adding new formats to build directory. If you saw the portable manual discussion, then you may already have found and read the PDF/.doc version of the FREM manual. A future build will include .doc and PDF versions as part of the game files. Additionally, while porting it over to those formats, I found a several typos/errors/etc. in the in-game manual that need correcting.
- General improvements, QoL fixes. There are several small fixes I have planned, which include things like tracking completed challenges and marking them on the UI, and supporting more mouse buttons.
- Standalone ROM player. Early during FREM development I had the idea to make a standalone FREMScript player, and some others have suggested it. There are some technical challenges to overcome, and I'm not 100% certain that it will see the light of day, but I do intend to spend some more time exploring it.
So, when are these updates coming? The short answer is: when they're ready. I plan to do a build with some of the small QoL changes and manual additions toward the end of January, After that, my next delivery focus will be Steam achievements, whenever they are ready to go. Between now and then, if any new ideas come to light, I'll consider them.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more FREM updates down the road.
Feedback is highly valued, so drop by the Discussions page and share your requests, thoughts, screenshots, and creations!
Cheers,
John
Negative(-11) Games Division
