I suppose with 0.5.1 released it’s time to talk about the next release, so let’s talk about new features / bugs to fix for 0.5.2.
I think that maybe we should release 0.5.1.1 with the crash fixes and a few other small fixes next week to not have the players struggle with a crashing version of the game too long (I assume that my chunk fixing PR fixed the random crashes from it).
As for me, as I said I hope to have 0.5.1.1 done in a week or two with most critical fixes. As well as I’d like to get launcher 1.2.4 done also in the next few weeks with some devbuild playing improvements.
For 0.5.2 I’d like to see stuff like:
spawn system improvements
beginnings of an interactive tutorial (I’d like to work on this)
adding binding agents and cells clumping together (also something I’d want to tackle)
Sounds good! I think I’ll tackle adding some proposed editor changes like a segmented MP bar to show how much something costs. It might not be as big as other stuff, but it might be nice to have a little extra spice for stuff while we wait for the big stuff. I’d also try to tackle a handful of bugs, I really want an ironed out version.
One thing I think is that auto-evo is the last required piece for the minimum viable product. The stage could function without a procedural patch map or planet generator (though obviously those are cool things) but without auto-evo it’s not going to be possible to balance things or make the gameplay fun. Also it’s kind of the heart of the game.
I don’t have much time but if there is anyone who would like to take it on I’m happy to coach them through the technical side of it. I think the current prototype will work. However it needs to be a programmer who is keen to build it and is willing to put some time into it.
If it’s not possible this patch that’s no problem, I just wanted to offer a little of my time as support if that would help.
There is a PR that implements (at least some version) of the prototype:
It was not accepted because (if I remember correctly) it is missing extinctions and the final population numbers don’t end up changing in further generations (I think that was a thing that happened) even when the glucose is getting reduced all the time (this part might also have a bug, though).
Edit: I added those in as well as pulled in some miscellaneous issues in the planning board “perhaps to include in next release” column.
One more bigger thing I want I added to the milestone: adding a process view for all compound balances.
That’d be awesome. I won’t make an issue / add that to the milestone as if you don’t get it done, it’s unlikely that anyone else gets it done either. Once you make a PR it can be added to the milestone just to keep track that it got done for the next release.
Sorry about being absent from this discussion, I hope I’m not too late! If it’s possible, I would like to shove in a light system rework in preparation for rebalancing photosynthesis, I’ve been on hiatus with figuring out how exactly we should go about doing that but I will get back on it ASAP.
I would like to only include finished designs in the planned release. As it is now light system rework is a pretty non-concrete thing for me, I’d like to see design work done on it first.