Week Ten: On the Right Path

This week was quite intense from a programming standpoint.  I've been hard at work on replacing my old Unity backend with my new system, since achieving the level of visual polish we need for WLNA would be time-consuming and unstable with the old system.  I managed to get the backend done, but at the cost of most of my energy for the week.  Not a particularly smart move on my part, but it's been a while since I've gotten really passionate about a programming task. 

The plan for this week was to get everything migrated over to the new backend and have that version ready for testing by Saturday.  By the end of the week, this was clearly not going to be feasible.  I could get the backend ready, but I had too little time to go and port all my old code over to the new system.  I managed to get a nice splash screen working before realizing that I had approximately four hours before testing to accomplish eight hours of programming.  Having run out of the energy necessary to accomplish this impossible tasks, I instead transferred my efforts over to the old demo, attempting to fix some bugs and integrate some new art.  That was a simple affair, after which Mancino and I took the game into QA testing.

Our game was a great success at testing.  Despite a serious bug with shields (which I had attempted to squash only to watch it pop back up time and again), people really seemed to enjoy it, managing to work out the game's various systems with little to no guidance.  Most played two matches, and one pair was on their third match as we left.  That, to me, is a very good sign that we have something special.  It still needs a lot of polish and better player feedback, but the core mechanics are solid and fun.