Right now I am working on the "farming" functionality of the game, where one can plant plants in a plot, grow and harvest them over time.
After that, everything I have planned for this initial re- release of the game is done!
I will of course have to fix a few bugs here and there, and clean and tidy up some things before I release it on steam again, my goal is for this project to be released functional, and be a project that people enjoy playing.
The only other thing I have to think about is where to host the dedicated server. I currently will probably try AWS (amazon web services) to host the server, but it will cost money after a certain amount of use, and I don't have a lot of that these days.
Players WILL be able to host a dedicated server themselves if they want to as well of course, via your own computer, or if you want to rent a server space or have access to one.
I chose dedicated authoritative servers for this project instead of pier to pier multiplayer functionality for a lot of reasons............ security being top on the list, authoritative servers being harder to hack than pier to pier setups, and also the amount of players an authoritative, dedicated server can accept vs a pier to pier server setup.
It is a more expensive choice, but I want to make the best choice for the project.
Otherwise once I finish the farming functionality, it's go time guys!
I have agreed to let a twitch streamer have full authority of playing the release of the game before it is uploaded to steam, so there won't be a public beta before i upload it to steam.
The game will though have been tested by many people online, outside of a development environment before I upload it......... So I am trying to give you guys the most tested, bug free version of the initial release of the game that I can put out.
Cheers and it's getting to be very soon now, I will give you guys one last update with some video footage of the swimming and farming features before we go live.
Thank you all for the continued support.