Huh, I thought you were going to wait a bit before adding the parallax background. It’d be great to get it in for 0.3.1.
Also, for anyone reading the thread, also planned for 0.3.1 are Linux compatibility and crash fixes (both already done) and a new cytoplasm organelle.
Eh, the dynamic player-following background was the hardest part to achieve. All that was really left was making the different textures move at different speeds and then laying them on top of each other. You can see the finished video of the parallax background on the “Textures for…” thread. I’m assuming everything will look a lot better when we add compound clouds in.
Okay, so I’ve done random colors for NPCs and stopped the membrane from “breaking” if the organelles get too far away from the nucleus (this actually creates some very nice curves). I’m waiting on someone to check my pull request, and then I can commit. That was everything I wanted to do for 0.3.1, so assuming we don’t find any bugs, we can release soon.
PS. I renamed the thread to 0.3.1 plans.
Hmm, this makes me rethink the place cytoplasm has in all of this. We can still have it as a blank organelle (even a base on needed in cell structure before placing other organelles on top) in 0.3.1 because talking about how it works will only delay things further, but it might be worth a rethink at some point. One reason for keeping it is as a simple measure of how much ATP is used idly by a cell for its body size for things like osmoregulation. I’ll start a cytoplasm thread soon.
Also should this thread be split (and if so where) or should it just be renamed Release Plans or something?
Maybe rename this as Release Plans for the general long term plans, and then have a separate thread for the next release?
Done. (meeting character requirement)
I’ve edited the OP to add a master release planning list. So far it includes @TheCreator’s personal list along with most of the other planned features sprinkled liberally throughout potential future releases. Some thought has been put into their placings, but not very much (and after all, it’s me doing this so I’ve probably made some errors). Future people, please keep that list up to date with whatever your current plans are. Present people, suggest what should be there to aim for.
Yeah, I agree with that list. Also, we’re still adding editor symmetry, right? I’m going to go ahead and see how hard/easy that will be to implement.
If you can do it, then yeah go for it. Otherwise it’s not a big deal. How we’d display it using the current GUI I’m not sure, that could be the tricky part. I’ve added it to the list anyway.
EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention I finally modified the minimum post length in the admin settings. Woo!
ANOTHER EDIT: Oops, I also forgot to post what I was supposed to post before getting sidetracked.
How are we going about releasing this time? Do we need a trailer or even a pre-release? I personally think a pre-release is (hopefully) unnecessary since there aren’t enough new features that aren’t already bug fixes to increase the likelihood of bugs appearing.
As for the trailer, we might need something (just so people on YouTube can be notified and we can put it on the website) but not anything excessive. In my opinion, ~20 seconds of gameplay showing off the new cell colours and parallax background should be enough, mixed with the feature list emphasising Linux compatibility.
We’ll still need a new Devblog though. I’ll ask @stealthstylel but if he’s too busy I’m happy to write it again (although not in the next couple of days because I won’t have internet). Ideally this should come out after the Thrive vs Species Devblog. If Quasar replies in the next few days and adds his final parts we’re good, otherwise we should consider switching this order so as not to delay the release any further. And of course it’ll need publicising to Facebook (which we still don’t have access to, so unlikely unfortunately), Twitter, the subreddit and the community forums.
Stealthstylel is going away for the break, so he won’t be able to post withing the next couple of days, but I’m willing to do the devblog. I could also record the video.
Sure, if you’re up for it. For the Devblog, I’d suggest having a list of all the new features with brief descriptions (see the release schedule above to make sure everything’s covered), with a link to the community survey, the new user guidance post and @tjwhale’s gameplay and CPA prototypes as extra bits.
Thanks to @TheCreator, 0.3.1 is finished! 
RELEASE: Release Thrive 0.3.1 · Revolutionary-Games/Thrive · GitHub
DEVBLOG: http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/devblog-4-a-life-in-color/
I’ve added a spoiler to 0.3.1 in the opening post (or as close to a spoiler as you can get on Discourse), and now work begins on 0.3.2. Hurrah!
Anyone have any objections to the feature list for 0.3.2? In my opinion a basic tutorial and performance improvements are musts and it would be nice to get a few more things in. It’s only been half a month since the last release, so by our standards things are going pretty quickly. We could probably afford to wait a bit longer and pack some other things in.
I agree with both of those. What interests me more is sound effects overhaul. What is meant by that?
Also I’m assuming options menu is referring to being able to chance graphics and audio in-game?
There are a few sound effects I’m not happy with as they are now, and the balance between music and sound effects isn’t ideal (effects tend to overpower the music most of the time). I’ll create a few replacements and fiddle around with volume settings. Hopefully the programmers can fix the sound latency when switching between gamestates too.[quote=“NickTheNick, post:34, topic:129”]
Also I’m assuming options menu is referring to being able to chance graphics and audio in-game?
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That’s my understanding of it. Maybe removing the Ogre dialog could come with this?
Yeah, @jjonj was working on the options menu, but it’s kind of at a standstill until @meandmy10 has some free time to draw the elements.
I’m going to start working on a tutorial right now, so that will hopefully make it into the release.
I want to get the process system overhaul done for 0.3.2 also – tjwhale’s been working on a prototype, I like it, and we can switch the system over to c++ at the same time.
What’s the process system overhaul? The CPA prototype he’s been working on?
Well, the current process system was hard to repurpose towards being used with bacteria, in large part because processes are heavily intertwined with the microbe code, and we needed a new way to model process rates that’s more modular and independent. The model he’s working on uses a system for process rates that is just what I was looking for.
Sure thing, I updated the OP.
