The new build is launched! Here’s some additional things I’ve added based on an event I went to earlier in the week: whether these are for the better or worse we are yet to see.

1. I have implemented a pause state as I know many people have been struggling with comprehension of everything along with being able to get away from the intensity of gameplay for a moment. For now I have locked the camera movement once the game is paused. I might change this to allow people to review what is happening on different battlefields, although this might give the player too much of an advantage.

2. Sound is now toggleable which I personally added so I can play the game whilst watching videos simultaneously/listen to music. It’s currently locked to a key but I would like to implement into the pause menu.

3. The help sheet that comes with the game had some problems with people reading the dots and dashes incorrectly in particular the number based Morse which they perceived as a dot to start a bullet point rather than part of the actual message. To fix this, I shifted all the full stops up a row in line with the dashes.

4. The biggest change that I’ve implemented is a new control system. Rather than recording, then instantly removing a coordinate, the last recorded coordinate is retained until a new one is inputted. This means you can fire as many times from the same spot as you like without having to re-input the information. It means you could select a row then choose coordinates along it to eliminate multiple targets without needing to type it in over and over and over again. At this time I plan to offer both methods of gameplay along with potentially a third extra hard setting where the amount of data on the screen is limited.

5. I’ve also restricted the spawning of enemies until the tutorial has finished to prevent players from being overwhelmed.

6. I’m currently looking into method of having the soldiers have less influence individually as the balance shifts further to the extremes. What I mean by this is many games I have seen end with the soldiers attacking in very large groups but only needing one to cross the trenches to win (which feels somewhat of a hollow victory). I prefer as the balance of power shift that it becomes necessary for more soldiers to cross the trenches to influence the shift of power.

7. Difficulty select - I’ve decided to present the two different modes of control (explained in the previous post)

8. Fixed a bug where the player infantry ran on the spot instead of playing the idle animation

9. Tinkered the hell out of the diplomacy system - Totally broke my brain today adding an extra layer of complexity to the battle balance bar - For every 1 number in the direction towards a victor, the number of soldiers required to cross no man’s land is whatever that value is.

Let me explain:

At the moment in Morse, if the enemy/player reaches -11 (Enemy) or 11 (Player), the game will end. In-between those numbers, you have a tug of war esque scale with which the players must get soldiers across the trenches in order to push in their favour. Many were complaining that there wasn’t enough time spent on the higher levels (The moment you were level 10, even though there’d be a huge number of soldiers on the opposite side, one of your soldiers crossing the border would mean you would win. Rather than it taking just one soldier to shift the bar across, it works like this now:

Number of soldiers needed = Value trying to acquire
1 = 1 Solider
2 = 2 Soldiers
3 = 3 Soldiers
4 = 4 Soldiers
Etc etc.

I’ve also added all of the updates/upgrades to the iPad version, and it looks pretty good.

It’s worth saying that I’ve pumped a tonne of time into the project over the last few weeks. Because of this, I’ve got to give the project a rest for a while. There are a good number of significant reasons:

Work: My students come first, so the next few weeks I’ve got to crack on with supporting them, since a large deadline for the module I manage is coming up. This involves writing tutorials, helping them fix their projects and in turn running classes (Not to mention the big ol’ pile of marking at Christmas).

Unreal 4: I’ve been dissecting the innards of UE4 over the last few months, and I’m needing to take time now for turning this knowledge into tutorials and lesson material, along with reaching an equal competence with UE4 as Stencyl (Which is going to be difficult considering I’ve had around 2000 hours alone teaching the software, never mind using it). Not only is this critical for the module that I will be running next semester, but Unreal is an expansion point for my own skillset that is very valuable.

ALT.CTRL.GDC: I’m needing to put together plans for GDC next year, as I’m submitting SpaceRagers to the competition. This involves a lot of planning and the longer I leave sorting it out, the more expensive it’ll be. Better to strike whilst the iron is hot.

Installation Required: One of my part time jobs is running controller workshops and consultancy for educational programs. This is requiring a decent chunk of time currently as I’m running a controller game jam in just over 2 weeks (Along with making sure there’s more workshops lined up/Doing the paperwork for previous events). I have plans for the summer and not investing in them now is putting the work at risk.

Narcissus: Yes, Narcissus is still alive. There’s going to be an event coming up in a few weeks where I’ll be getting an opportunity to talk to Apple. For this, I need to refine the iPhone build I’ve been putting together to make sure I give myself the best possible chance of getting their attention. Just so you know, it feels really good on phone and I’m super pumped for getting the game out after a development cycle that spans to the start of my career.

Wellbeing: All developers should ensure that there’s enough time put aside to exercise, sleep, eat well, clean, get out of the house, see loved ones and do things outside of games. It’s something that tends to get overlooked in the grand scheme of things and doing so in the long run damages your productivity, not to mention your health. NO MATTER HOW SUCCESSFUL YOU OR YOUR GAMES BECOME, THEY CANNOT BUY YOUR GOOD HEALTH BACK.

Coming back with a fresh mind: It’s always good to take a break from a project for a while in order to give your brain some time to think through problems. Even a shower break or a walk can trigger the solutions for problems I’ve been scrambling my brain over. The example I talked about (Number 9 in the list of fixes was solved by taking a notepad and sitting on my doorstep). In this case, taking a couple of weeks off from the project will allow me to come back enthused and excited to be cracking on. If any of you have been following my projects for my career thus far, I tend to mosey between projects. I promise I will mosey back and know that I am so incredibly excited for this project.

I had to put off a surfing trip with friends the weekend because of the backlog of work/things to sort out. Whilst I took on the chunk of the academic work on Saturday, I drifted into working on Morse for most of Sunday, meaning everything else listed here didn’t get done. Everything else on this list is far more important at the moment, so the project will rest for a while. This isn’t to say that there won’t be an evening where I pick up the project for fun, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s currently on low priority on things to do.

I tend to post most stuff I’m doing on Twitter, so keep an eye on what I’m up to on there!