Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Patch 1.08, ratable challenges

I’m just uploading version 1.08 now. It fixes a numebr of bugs and minor issues, but the two big things in terms of gameplay and usability are these:
Firstly all of the variables associated with ship modules now have fairly extensive tooltips which explain their gameplay significance a bit more. This was needed because a lot of people just Escaped out of the tutorial windows, didn’t spot there was a manual and thus had no idea how ship design worked or the components interacted. Hopefully this improves that a bit, and I also stuck a big button on the main menu to launch the manual, although if you for some reason have no PDF reader on your PC, that will seem like it just quits the game. Almost all PC’s now come bundled with the bloated crapware that is Adobe reader (try this instead), and people who self-build their PC’s know about PDF readers anyway.

The second change of note is the introduction of ratable challenges. Basically I stuffed some more data in the challenge database, and you can now sort challenges by map (only for new uploaded ones sadly) and by difficulty or enjoyment. Once you finish playing a challenge you can rate it out of five for these two variables, and the average score is presented in the slightly nicer challenge browser. There is also no longer any ‘auto’ challenges, which were crap anyway, and you can instead now filter to see just your posted challenges, to see how many people have beaten your fleets :D

This is what it looks like:

I’m aiming to work today on configurable ship orders for each ship design, to make laying out those big fleets much less of a chore.


12 thoughts on Patch 1.08, ratable challenges

  1. I recently got the beta. But where do I find the 1.08 download? Or will it install automatically when I connect online?

  2. Autoinstalled the update when starting the game. On the original install i had chosen a different directory and when updating assumed it would notice that and install into that. Totally missed however that it actually updates into the default directory and thus was very confused when it complained about lack of fmodex.dll. :)

  3. I just updated to 1.08 and for some reason I now only have access to the Rebel and Federation races despite having finished ALL of the battles up to Expert level…

    Is this intentional or a… Bug?

  4. loving the constant updates. Why couldn´t other developers be more like cliff here? He seems to comprehend that incomprehensive fact that most game houses don´t even care to cander.

    WE (the consumer) HAVE OPINIONS.

    If you (developer) can listen to these opinions, cater to them, and create a project around them, adding them, and treating people with respect, you will have an avid fanbase who will in all likelyhood purchase more and more of your games.

    Simple logic places Cliff at the top of the chain, and people working at, oh I don´t know, blizzard, eidos, etc, at the bottomr.

  5. Great game. I’ve found with the latest version, if I click Fight on a Challenge, then click Main Menu (straight away) from the deployment screen the game will crash.

    Also it would be really handy to see which challenges I have actually beaten. Whenever I come back to the game (say a few days later) I can’t remember which challenge I was trying to beat.

  6. @Alex,
    I don’t believe a reference to Blizzard is really in place there. They have an excellent history of listening to their customers and only delivering top-quality games.

    Aside from that, awesome to see this game being developed this way. It’s nice to follow the development and ins and outs of an indie developer.

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