Dan P of Infinite Lives had me on for an interview the other day, and he's just uploaded the podcast here. It runs about an hour, during which we chat about releasing NEO Scavenger, early access, design goals, and games we're playing. If you're interested in hearing our chat, head on over!
I continued work today on tweaks and fixes to the latest "test" build, v0.995b. My aim is to get an update out there for v0.995b that fixes some of the bigger issues found.
One of the issues found was that encounter items would disappear if clicked with the drag mode cursor. Most people wouldn't encounter this, as the cursor mode gets auto-set to take/drop mode on that screen. But it was still possible, so I fixed it.
I've been keeping an eye on bug reports in the new test version, and so far, they're pretty minor. I'm also getting feedback on the new ability rebalance, which is primarily positive. A few folks are concerned about their old builds being impossible, but I think those are able to be made with very minor modding tweaks, so I'm okay with it so far.
Hey folks! Hope everyone had a good weekend. While still autumn here, we're starting to see snow on the peaks of nearby mountains. I'm sad to see warmer weather go, but also strangely looking forward to winter.
Since Friday's costume contest occluded my usual devlog, I'll combine a list of what I did Friday and today in this post. Most of the work has been bug-fixing, as I get ready for v0.995b.
Got some ragged jeans and a dirty old hoodie? Saving up those plastic shopping bags and ketchup packets in the kitchen drawer? You are? Well then, you're ready for the 2014 NEO Scavenger Halloween Cosplay Giveaway!
This Halloween, I'll be giving away copies of NEO Scavenger to the best NEO Scavenger cosplayers who submit their photos. Simply dress-up like someone from the NEO Scavenger universe, and email me your photo. Then, NEO Scavenger players will vote on the results. The 5 highest voted photos win a free copies of NEO Scavenger on Steam!
NEO Scavenger is now officially updated to v0.9942b! Since the test builds have been relatively stable, I've just finished updating the default builds to 0.9942b on all sites. The "test" links are no longer necessary, and have been removed for now.
For those following along, Adam's posted the second installment of his NEO Scavenger Diary. The bit where he dwells on plastic bags for a paragraph gave me a good chuckle. Especially with the American Beauty clip playing in the background.
Yesterday's skill overhaul proposal garnered some really useful feedback. As you'll see if you read the comments, I was trying too hard to make the skill system fit into the item/container paradigm, and was unnecessarily complicating things. (Not to mention, cutting off some customizability.)
So taking that feedback into account, I revised the new skill system to be point-based instead of size-based:
With the latest test build up, I'm waiting to see if it has any stability issues before making it the default build. In the meantime, I'm continuing my investigations into skill rebalancing.
I decided to do some more playtesting this morning, to get a feel for scavenge drop rates. The recent change has caused more than a little concern among players, so I've been watching for signs it's too easy or hard.
Yesterday's new test build seems to be fairly stable, if forums are any indication. Few bugs have surfaced. As long as that remains the case, we should have a new default build soon!
Taking advantage of this relative quiet, I decided to do another triage of remaining issues. Looking through my old top-100 list, I was able to close about 30 of them as "fixed," "cannot repro after 5 months," or "won't fix." There are still almost 70 remaining, but a lot of the more major ones were solved, which is good.
Hey all! Hope everyone had a good weekend. I had Indian food for the first time in, well, years I guess. And man, it was good! I used to get it quite a lot, but since we moved, we haven't had much luck until this weekend. We should've tried this place sooner!
Today, I spent part of the morning catching up on forum posts, and seeing how the new build is faring. So far, it seems fairly good, though there are definitely some show-stoppers in there.
