All 256 achievements are done! But... there's still a lot to do :P
Even just on the achievements side of things there's more UI work before the system can be considered finished, then after that still the Steam support to add as well, for those playing Cogmind on Steam, but at least we're in the tail end of it. And at least all the achievements are both implemented and tested, so the foundation is complete and stable!
As reported last time the final batch of icons was completed, too, so I have a program that can spit out all the icons as individual PNGs (I develop them as REXPaint spritesheets), and those are ready for the next processing steps...
Specifically for Steam players I have to upload all the achievement icons and fill in their tag, name, description, setting.... It'd be nice if Steam supported batch uploading, but no, each has to be done one. at. a. time. xD. I guess that's fine for most games not having quite so many achievements, but it doesn't scale very well!
Steam also uses JPGs for achievements (along with ugly scaling!), so the quality in Steam's interface won't be as good as it is in game (where you always get perfectly crisp pixels, yay! :D)
UI Work
One of the next places you may need to see achievements is one the game over screen. Most achievements will be displayed directly on the map, but a subset of them can be specifically earned only after the run ends, and they should also be shown somewhere convenient. Plus sometimes you may earn an achievement immediately before the run ends and there's no chance for it to appear on the map--those too will show on the game over screen next to the stats.
Any that won't fit in the window (they'll usually fit) can be found in the score sheet as part of the complete list of achievements earned that run.
The score sheet will of course also keep track of the total percentage of achievements earned so far, as it does with lore and gallery items.
So all the little UI features are done, while the big achievements interface is still under construction. (Remember that both Steam and non-Steam players have equal access to the achievements system, which comes with a better UI and functionality than Steam can offer anyway :D) Here's its current state:
It's very WIP right now--missing lots of buttons, some animations are wrong, and some pieces aren't even animating :P. I shared the original mockup in an earlier SITREP which you can check out to get an idea of what's missing from the layout.
This'll be finished up for next time, and I'll be writing more about achievements the UI later, including via some dedicated blog posts.
Note that in order to fit achievements into the game menu system, I've made some adjustments there. First of all I removed some of the tab/page buttons, and recentered the remaining ones. (Note that the lore and gallery will still be directly accessible via their original number hotkeys, as an extra fast shortcut, you just don't see the buttons there.)
Those features have been consolidated into a single new "Records" page.
That page will be getting more features in the future, but I'll talk about those another time. For now that's where access to lore, gallery, and achievements is provided, along with a little description which is helpful for those just getting into Cogmind.
Coglikes
POLYBOT-7, the Cogmind-ish game I made for this year's 7DRL, will be getting a little update with some bug fixes and minor gameplay tweaks. This week while testing out that build, what was a "quick test run" turned into a full playthrough (couldn't help myself :P) and I made it to the end for my second win \o/
My winning build while closing on the end-game:
While on the topic, I've been continuing to fleshing out my concept for yet another Cogmind-like much more radically different from Cogmind. This is an idea that for several years now I've hoped to be able to explore as a 7DRL one day. Because it's so radical it'd have to be built from scratch, though, so it's initial scope would be smaller and focus mostly on the core mechanic.
Anyway, one can dream but if it does happen it'll be a fantasy-themed roguelike which probably (eventually, at it's greatest) could be an open-world game, but I dunno... going down that rabbit hole I might never emerge! In any case, I seem to be starting a new subgenre here :) (and yet there are so many other different roguelikes I want to make, too! ugh, getting old sucks since it's very clear I only build so many more of these things...)
Speaking of evolution of the genre, this week I happened across a nice mention of Cogmind in this popular interview with Tarn and Zach of Bay 12 Games (from the 12:24 mark). What a nice surprise! We seem to have a bunch of new players who've discovered Cogmind through that avenue as well. Welcome :D
Plans
We're definitely within a month of releasing Beta 6 at this point, though I still don't have an approximate date on my end. Even with all the achievements implemented there's still plenty more work to do there, and the release timing could depend on how smoothly the remaining parts go.
All next week will likely be spent on finishing up achievements-related work, to be followed by a huge list of stuff I will so not be able to finish cramming into Beta 6 xD. Lots of new stuff to work on has been popping up in these few months without a release, so some of that will end up getting pushed back as padding for future releases (themselves centered around other major features).
I've also been brainstorming some ways to add even more content in the long-term without being forced to release it as DLC in order to pay for it, and I think I've come up with an interesting solution but I'll announce that separately when I have more time to write it all out.
There may be other relevant discussion of this SITREP on the GSG forums.