It’s been a few months since my last status update for SMS: The Next Mission. Over the past two months, I have decided to remove, then re-add, the shmup version of the game. I am also again on the fence on whether I should include multiplayer support like I had originally planned (and then decided against).

Originally, I wanted to recreate the mobile version of Space Mission: Survival on the PC and Mac. A desktop version has been running in development for several months now. The PC opens up a lot more options, so I wanted to add a lot of bells and whistles including multiplayer, and expand on the “Classic 90s” retro look. A bit later, I decided to drop multiplayer and focus on single player. I added a “Retro 70s” look as well.

A couple of months later I had a playable game that had two styles, Classic 90s and Retro 70s. Same game, two styles that the player can play from beginning to end. At this point I decided that maybe it would be cooler if the player was some sort of time traveler and can warp to different video game eras. I like it!

So, right now, I have a Retro 70s, Home Computer 80s, and Classic 90s version of the game. The 2000s version will be the shmup level and I will start development on that soon. I am actually thinking of adding a “Text Based 60s” mode to see if I can pull that off.

I am trying to keep each level accurate to the decade. This includes graphics and text styles, sound, and game play.

I am not sure if changing my mind so many times is a good or bad omen, but I believe the current idea of traveling through decades and playing the game with features available at that time will be fun and challenging. The only other decision I have to make (other than a name change, perhaps) is whether I want to add (local) multiplayer support, which would be ideal for consoles.

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