Beta 7 is around the corner! We're heading into the final phases of development for this cycle, and with all the major features done, as usual I spent a good hour organizing and prioritizing a list of what else I'd like to pack in. Looks like it'll be ready for you within two weeks.
Probably the coolest feature to show for the week is map exporting. With a single command you'll be able to output a full-sized PNG of the current map as you've explored it.
Images are placed in a new /screenshots-maps/ directory and named with the map's name, depth, and the number of turns spent on that particular map when the export was made. This process may take a few seconds because it needs to sequentially render numerous frames across the entire map, compiling them together into a single huge PNG.
Being a collage of screenshots, image exports use whatever font and size you've currently set. The example above shows an export using size 20 tiles, and here's the same map instead using size 12 ASCII:
This was originally a debug-only feature I added years ago specifically for creating images for game media (desktop wallpapers, image backgrounds, etc), though now everyone will have access to it and I'm sure it'll come in handy.
I'm interested to see what people do with it, and I imagine it'll be useful for things like certain types of guides, creative endeavors, and strategy research.
FIXed
The top priority for late-cycle dev is to clear out Beta 6 bugs, and this time around we have more than usual since it's been a while since the last release--more obscure things to report! :P
I noticed on a recent playthrough that Waste and Garrison markers couldn't both appear on the same floor on the world map, and also that it was no longer showing the Garrison marker if currently inside one. Fixed that:
Also I finally addressed the fact that two labels for the same exit can appear when it's right off the edge of the map. I've known about this for years but that section of code is really complicated and doing anything about it was problematic (not to mention that behavior did have its advantages sometimes) so I mainly ignored it, but recently got two reports about this... May as well do something about it to save everyone some time. Here's a before and after comparison:
Although most of this week was spent resolving bugs, before release I'll also be spending some time slipping in smaller new features and QoL stuff.
I got a request from someone with vision issues to make it possible to play without automatically scrolling the map as you move, so that's a new advanced option. Here's a comparison of that and normal behavior:
This mode would basically require manual scrolling, or using the recenter command manually.
Like map exports this was something I could already do on my side, originally added specifically for convenience when recording certain types of demo GIFs.
Quick Analysis
If you're looking to up your speedrunning game, zxc has put together a new spreadsheet analyzing the top runs among those participating in the weekly races.
You can find that and more speedrunning resources in the new repository thread on the forums.
All Penguins on Deck
In case you haven't heard, Valve has launched a new opt-in beta program that allows Linux players to install and play Windows games via a built-in version of Wine.
Cogmind in particular has undergone extensive playtesting under Wine (including fixes for all known issues) and the experience is on par with the Windows version, so if there are any issues it'll be on Valve's side, but even though it just launched it already seems to be working more or less okay.
For now Valve is manually whitelisting games and only has a few, but you can get around that restriction by changing this setting:
Steam -> Settings -> Steam Play -> Enable Steam Play for all titles
For reference there's a huge community-organized chart of games and their compatibility under the new system, where players can contribute their experiences with different games.
Anecdotally it would seem that so far Cogmind works normally with Valve's version, except there have been two cases where users with PulseAudio didn't have any sound (restarting seems like a way to get that problem to correct itself). In any case, if there are any other issues Valve will probably fix them down the line, and Cogmind's system requirements are quite simple so in general once they come out of beta Cogmind will be as smooth for everyone as it is using external Wine solutions. Valve's new thing seems to already work fine for most players though, so that's nice :)
A note about SITREPs: These are regular progress updates where I share features coming to the next release, but aren't actually in game yet. Public releases get their own dedicated news announcement and changelogs/release notes, for example Beta 6 here.
There may be other relevant discussion of this SITREP on the GSG forums or r/Cogmind.