Wed, Aug 26th 2009, 17:21
Fixing a Hole
Wed, Aug 26th 2009, 17:21
As the beta feedback has been coming in, I've been aggressively
tweaking Oxidus to get it to worthy-of-public-beta status. I
can't really say with any certainty as there are still some
hard issues that need tending to, but open beta in two weeks
(currently) seems feasible.
Normally I review my SVN logs and turn that into a paragraph or
two to give a more specific recounting of the week's work. This
week's circumstances to not afford me this luxury. So, you get
what I remember instead.
The sliders now have an arbitrary granulation, which allows
their value range to be broken into sane increments. Honestly,
you will never know the difference between 67 and 68 damage in
any meaningful way. This results in a smoother, simpler player
experience that still affords the same overall variety.
Previously, all of the administration behavior was through a
debug build of the client. It has been reconfigured such that
administration is now linked to individual individual user
accounts and not the particular build. This allows me (or
theoretical other admin) anywhere, provided I have an internet
connection. Nifty!
Though you might not expect it, the single most time consuming
task this week was making the blueprints save / load buttons
highlight when moused over. I had a really hard time coming up
with logic for this within the UI system that wasn't horribly
ugly, but hashed it out eventually. After that it was a matter
of getting the actual "glow" to look compelling, but generic
enough that it could be used with other images (as it was
implemented as a state of a UI image). AdditiveBlit saved
the day; the actual effect is two AdditiveBlits at 50% lucent
on top of the normal blit sprite. Now you know my trade secrets!
That should be enough rambling for now. Tune in next week for
Wild and Crazy Damage Redesign.
