Our last release, 0.2.4, came out in February. Unless you haven’t looked at a calendar in ten days, you won’t be surprised to learn it’s now October. High time for a new release, I think.
This thread is for organising 0.3.0, the upcoming release primarily featuring improved graphics. Use it to discuss what you think should be included, updates on each element, and the final announcement once it’s up (although that might be better to have as an entirely separate thread linking to the GitHub release page).
If you’re wondering why this release isn’t 0.2.5, it’s because our version numbering system uses Stage.Major.Minor. At the moment, we’re part way through the microbe stage - once it’s finished, we’ll label that version 1.0.0. Major updates involve an increase in the second number, hence why, due to the addition of the membrane and organelles, we’re moving from 0.2.x to 0.3.x. So no, there aren’t 76 updates left until version 1.0.0, just as many as it takes to implement what’s planned.
The list below is a mix of what’s already been added to the code and what’s still planned. Feel free to suggest any changes, either if you think I’ve missed something or you think something will be too difficult to implement within such a short time span.
Okay, I am done with implementing everything I wanted to do for the 0.3.0 release, so you can cross out the bottom 3 issues on your thing. Additionally, I think we already fixed the dependency issues quite some time ago.
It’s missing a nucleus model, but once I get it, it should take me around 10 minutes to add it in at the most.
I’ve already posted on the multiple hexes issue, but basically, some organelles now have multiple hexes and you can rotate them by clicking A and D. I also overhauled the visuals in the microbe editor. You now have organelle models on top of grey hexes. When you select an organelle, it turns green if you can place it somewhere and red if you cannot. Here’s are two visuals:
Oliver, we can scratch off multi-hex organelles and rendered membrane. Also I’d suggest you change the Organelle models bullet point to specify which models we still need.
@TheCreator I know you mentioned at one point about improving the background (possibly using this image, as well as making it move with the player). Would that be doable before the release?
So it seems we’re not including fixed dependencies in 0.3.0. I’ll cross them off the list in the opening post. That only leaves organelle models and updated AI microbes to fit the new organelle shapes.
In terms of organising the release, I have a couple of suggestions:
Someone should post the pre-release candidate as a reply to this thread, and if possible not make it an official release on GitHub (I’m not sure whether that’s possible, but if it is it’s the best option). The releases list on the website is linked directly to the releases on GitHub, so we shouldn’t put the release up there until it’s bug-free. Another option would be to label it as Thrive 0.3.0 Beta (Unstable) or something, so people on the website would know what to expect when downloading it.
We can still post the pre-release to the subreddit and community forums for people to test (providing we still mention it might be unstable). That’s actually a completely new advantage of the community forums I’d never thought of.
I’ll write up a website devblog covering everything from the release and a few other notes while the pre-release is going. We can have the Species-Thrive post as Devblog #4 afterwards.
Someone also needs to prepare a new trailer showcasing the graphics, to be published with the release itself.
Once all the bugs have been ironed out, we can put up the proper release on GitHub and everything, with summarised release notes there like the last ones. I’ll publish Devblog #3 at the same time and link to the GitHub page, or alternatively a release thread on this forum from whoever publishes the release.
We can then publicise everything on Facebook, Twitter, the subreddit, community forums, etc.
