It's ten days since that nasty business with the big update, and I've just released, counting on my fingers since that can't be right, yes it is, the twelfth patch. More if you count hotfixes. There were a lot of bugs. Sorry, all.
I think the vast majority of save-eating evening-ruining bugs are fixed. Maybe even all, though I won't count on it yet. I'm tracking thirty-five remaining issues ranging from 'that really annoying thing where the magnet snatches a card from a slot' through 'DOA on Mac Monterey, sometimes' to 'wrong influence upgrade text in rare circumstance'.
So I'm going back down to yellow alert, bugs-wise. I think that'll last until middle of next week. But you want to know about the snap-to-grid fixes. I'm not done with these, I'll revisit, but we're in a better place. Let me talk about that now.
Okay, this is why everyone was so unhappy. When I was staring at this sort of thing for hours and fixing subtle recipe logic bugs, it didn't really register. The moment I look at it out of context, right, ugh, it's like being punched in the brain. I'm thinking of adding a HORRIBLE option to the gridsnap besides 1, 1/2, 1/4 so people who really want to do hardcore speedruns can do it on boards that look like this.
And this is what it looks like now. The biggest problem was that the cards and the tiles both lived on separate grids. This made sense to me when I was coding it but obviously they should live on the same grid so they can line up with some friendly space around them. Now they do. My thanks to the folks who helped me grok this.
It wasn't the only problem. Here's another thing that attracted what you might call disenthusiasm:
Funds card really, really gets attached to those spots. The fix here was just 'recalculate card ghost position while moving over other tokens, not just over tabletop':
I've tweaked a bunch of other stuff and I'm going to step back and watch the feedback channels. It's not perfect yet. I noticed that the card ghost, at some resolutions/config settings, displays a sort of prankish, playful attitude:
I think it's actually quite charming, like having a tiny goat ambling over your board, but I suspect most will disagree. So I'll fix it, but as ever the main problem will likely be something that didn't occur to me at all, which might make the whole thing irrelevant.
THE DOWNSIDE: if you've got a board setup aligned to the old grid, there'll be some fiddling to tidy it all up. Sorry: the alternative was some sort of automated realignment, which would almost certainly have ruined someone's whole day.
To make it easier, I do have a small surprise in the pipeline that'll make card org easier:
but it's not stable yet, and the last thing I want to do is unleash another wave of bugs.
The last ten days have been exhausting but also surprisingly positive. I've been in a bit of a shell since the whole cancellation thing. This has forced me to engage with the community more than I have in years, and by and large you're a good bunch. Apologies again for fscking up the game, and thanks for bearing with me.
Q. Did you post any more of those videos?
A. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvfr83sBAefP3I9hWVfmdrJOD1epq66ay
Q. Hey, you never answered...
A. I've got 50 tickets on the back burner that I'll work through gradually. The answer is usually 'fixed in last patch' but not always.
Q. Didn't you post an influences list about Where You Get Your Ideas?
A. yup, here: http://weatherfactory.biz/influences
Q. Do you want to shill your book again like you did at the big update?
A. That sold a surprising number of copies, and I was tempted to do it again but it looks a bit tacky right now so I'm settling for this casual drive-by. I'll probably put it in the game menu like Tynan does when things have calmed down.
Q. Who is the cat in the error page?
A. His name is Chi and he's frankly a disgrace.
