With all 256 achievements implemented and tested last week, it was time to finalize the main achievements UI functionality.
The first subwindow I got working was the category filters.
Then onto the other filter and sorting options... All settings are remembered from when you last accessed the page so that you don't have to keep resetting them to your desired preferences, only making changes if you want to look at them in a different way.
And here's the entire thing working together!
So pretty soon you'll be able to browse your achievements in style.
All achievement data and images have actually been uploaded to Steam, but they're not published yet since I haven't released the build that allows access to them. However, because I had to test the Steam integration I did make the first couple public already,
meaning that from the store page it looks like Cogmind only has two achievements xD
Way to go, Valve... I haven't even marked "achievements" on the list of supported features but they don't care. You can't even earn those two, yet, although they do appear on the global achievements page because while testing I "earned" them :P
Anyway, the tests went smoothly and the data properly syncs back and forth between Cogmind and Steam, always making sure both sides have the latest data (in case you install Cogmind again elsewhere and it needs your records, or you migrate a DRM-free version over to a Steam-linked install of Cogmind). Here are Cogmind achievements successfully appearing in Steam for the first time!
Overseas Achievements
As with other collectible data in Cogmind (lore and gallery), achievements can also be exported to various formats. I've provided the same three formats, which you may want for different purposes.
Basic TXT, because TXT.
HTML includes some styling, plus a table of contents with links if you export a category-wise list.
CSV adds extra data like the highest difficulty mode on which each achievement was earned, and in which game number.
All exports load the same achievements listed in the UI, i.e. based on your currently set filters and sorting, giving you extra control over what is export and how.
Soonish
Next up is other non-achievement work for Beta 6. Considering that the changelog for this release has already grown quite fat I may push back some other features in order to get this one out sooner, but first things first, gotta fix all known bugs as per usual!
Oh yeah, my wife will be in surgery next week so I dunno that could slow things down, but by pushing some features to Beta 7 (don't worry, it's stuff you don't even know about yet ;)) the next release will be out on schedule.
I've also started writing the first of two blog posts about achievements, which will go into much greater depth about working on this aspect of a game.
If you're reading this now it's likely you already saw the previous announcement, but just in case here's a reminder: Check out the notice from a few days ago about the future of Cogmind.
There may be other relevant discussion of this SITREP on the GSG forums.