Phil Hassey - game dev blog
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Archive for October, 2013

Galcon 2 – beta21 – Bug fixing, cleanup, colorblind support added

Saturday, October 26th, 2013

Ahoy there, beta20 has arrived! Backers can check it out for Windows, Mac, Linux, or Android. (Testflight on the way…)

This update just fixed a bunch of bugs, and adds colorblind support. It also removed Galcon Legends from Galcon 2. (I hope to get a release candidate build of Galcon Legends out for you to test on Steam very soon!)

To modders, I’ve changed most 0/1 style bools over to true/false style bools to make things work better with Lua.

Also, check out a video of what happened when I first enabled colorblind mode in Galcon 2.

Please post your feedback on the forums!

Thanks!
-Phil

P.S. I’ll be online for a while to play the game, talk about Galcon 2, etc!

Goats in Utah!

Thursday, October 24th, 2013

A couple weeks ago Nan and I went on a goat vacation to Utah. It’s a super cool place to go hiking! Here’s three of my favorite pics from the trip:

Goblin Valley is totally amazing!

Spookey Canyon is super weird!

Cuzco says, “I’m the best!” while hiking on Escalante.

Petunia and Nubbin just hanging out on slot-canyon walls in Willis Creek.

Headin’ back.

Anyway it was a great time, we had a ton of fun. And the other day we bought a new goat hutch, it looked like a UFO in the back of our truck and a ton of people were staring while we spent the day in Pueblo driving around with it.

Goat hiking is fun!
-Phil

Galcon 2 – beta20 – SDL2, UI, Legends, Modding, Galaxy Map, Rewards …

Saturday, October 19th, 2013

Ahoy there! beta20 is ready for backers to check out for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. (TestFlight / iOS coming shortly.) I’ll be online for the next hour or so, so stop in and say hi!

The game itself got an internal upgrade as I migrated from SDL to SDL2, the main value of that is making full-screen work on retina display Macs. Everything else should be pretty much the same. I’ve also done a bunch of bug fixes and tweaks on the UI, so playing should work even better than before. These changes will improve play on touch and mouse control.

Galcon Legends got a bit of an overhaul with some new music, graphic improvements, and bot AI improvements! I’m hoping to release Galcon Legends to the public pretty soon, so do check it out and give feedback on the forums.

Modders rejoice! I’ve *finally* gotten around to fixing up mod_client and mod_server. You can customize those mods to make your own Galcon modes to test them out. Keep in mind we also have documentation on much of the Galcon 2 API for your reference here!

The Galaxy Map has gotten a nice new feature – stars with active players are highlighted so it’s even easier to find people online.

Also, I’ve gotten a few inquiries about the rewards. So let me fill you in:

– Post-Kickstarter PayPal backers will be getting their rewards last. KS people get ‘em first. (So if you backed late, you have to wait … it’s just kinda fair and it makes logistics easier for us.)

– $100+ tiers are on hold while we get the box set sorted out. We’ve had some trouble with the box, currently the wraps for the box are at the box company, who seems to not be willing to do the project, so we’re trying to get those returned so we can get the boxes produced by another company and then wrapped by someone else. A bit of crazy :( We’re really hoping we’ll get it sorted out soon.

– I’d love to send out stuff earlier (like the poster / magnet set) but unfortunately shipping costs are crazy, so it would cut into the money which is saved for the in-game art. Also, the way KS works, we can only request your address once, and mark things as shipped once, so that would make a bit of logistical mess too.

Once we have the box in hand, it’ll all be getting shipped out pretty quickly. But, yeah, it’s being delayed. Sorry about that! Thanks for your patience and all that.

-Phil

Galcon 2 – beta19 – Try Galcon Legends NOW!

Tuesday, October 1st, 2013

Ahoy there! A new update is ready for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and TestFlight.

The main feature of this is a new beta of Galcon Legends is included right with Galcon 2. (This will not be part of the final Galcon 2 release, but it’s the easiest way for me to get it out to you for testing!) Just sign in and click on the LEGENDS tab at the bottom of the screen.

I really want feedback on this game, as I’m going to try and release Galcon Legends during October, so please tell me what you think on the forums! This update of Legends also includes the excellent new soundtrack created by Joshua Laya. (Note: music not available on iOS or Android builds yet.)

Lastly, I’ve done a bunch of the bug fixes found in beta18. For the sake of making this post look longer, here’s the complete list:

= 10/1/2013 =
– ios: on portrait modes (ipod touch), the zoom mode goes on even when it shouldn’t (problem does not exist in landscape)
– ios: can’t slide percentages.
– mods: include Galcon Legends OR remove the Legends button from the mods screen.

= 9/30/2013 =
– legends: add music
– mods: upgrade frustration mod
– api: winning a bet loses your coins. (so a bet of 50 against 1 person loses you 150 instead of gaining you 50)
– galaxy: not always tracking rank / location of players properly.
– lobby: when joining a server, you aren’t always changed to the correct class.
– galaxy: joining a server doesn’t always get you into the correct server. (probably due to running out of servers? so maybe fixed?)
– galaxy: have button to dismiss user list
– galaxy: have user list say what server they are on right now.
– lobby: if in settings, anytime anyone types anything in chat, it drops you back to the lobby out of settings.
– galcon_util: game will end even if it’s a single player game (to avoid hanging servers.)
– lobby.lua: now you can’t start a game if there are 0 /play people
– clients.lua: added /debug command to inspect server variables.

= 9/26/2013 = (fixing on server)
– bets: betting winning crashes server.
– server: music not resetting for client when i rejoin a server.
– galaxy: user totals not correct on map
– galaxy: map should indicate where users are playing.
– galaxy: going to a server doesn’t always put you in the proper server

Have fun!
-Phil

P.S. I’ll be online for about an hour, so sign onto the Galaxy Map and say hi!