Not a lot to write this time as most work has been on code that just isn’t that interesting to show. I’ve been through the high severity bugs and fixed all of them (although I’m sure more will appear). I’ve been through all ~200 TODOs in the code and fixed all the ones that needed attention before release (luckily not very many).

Dave has been too busy to do much on the AI or Internet play so not much to report there just yet (he’s got other full-time work).

I have been working on one interesting thing:

Part unlocks. Destroy enemy vehicles and you’ll earn XP. As you gain XP you’ll unlock more parts. Obviously a basic set of parts is also already unlocked from the start. This is actually the last major task on my list before the first release. The rest is marketing stuff, and a bunch of smaller tasks.

This serves a dual purpose:

– It gives the game some progression and changing content in the absence of a campaign/story mode.

– It functions as a sort of tutorial so players aren’t overwhelmed with selection the first time they play.

Although I still need to add a better, proper tutorial thing before the public release though, even if it’s just a big static HOW TO PLAY screen with a bunch of words and images for now.

No parts in Scraps are really “better” than others, because more powerful parts are also proportionally more expensive. I’d hate to make a system that put new players at a forced disadvantage. But I’m setting it so players tend to start with smaller parts and proceed to unlock bigger, more expensive parts as they go, so it’s (hopefully) still exciting.

Anyway, really this system is more of a personal opinion thing, but I’ve always had more fun with games when there’s progression. I enjoyed unlocking the levels in Rollercoaster Tycoon more than I enjoyed having everything unlocked from the start in Rollercoaster Tycoon 2. As counterintuitive as that might sound it really just seems more fun to have something to work towards (applies to real life as well!).

Having said that, this won’t be some fancy cloud-deployed network-synced online-profile-linked DRM’d progression system. I don’t need to protect any content. XP is just a dumb saved number on your local machine and certainly not un-cheatable. In fact I think I’ll put in a semi-secret way to cheat and unlock everything, for people that would really prefer it that way. I know not everyone is like me.