Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Lots of stuff on the way

cliffski

I’ve been even busier than usual lately, and lost of stuff is in the preverbial inbox. There are two fairly imminent things.

One is patch 1.31. This fixes and improves lots of things, and there is a big annoying bug with the game freezing on startup for some people (very few, thankfully) which it should fix. I need to spend tomorrow on this, as a matter of urgency.

The next is the upcoming expansion pack, which adds a new race. Right now, the plan is for it to add a bunch of things. Graphical asteroid belts (which look l33t), some great new backdrops, likely to be two new missions, and a new race that has limpet mines and radiation guns. wahey!

The problem is that the expansion pack needs some code changes, and I would rather they *all* were in patch 1.31. I don’t ideally want to do 1.31, then in 2 weeks do 1.32 before the expansion, I dont want people to be constantly bugged by patches.

Sadly, I suspect that will be the case, because I want the expansion to be really awesome and it will likely be at least another two weeks of work away anyway, probably more. In any sense, I’m slightly worried that people have seen less frequent updates and wonder if the game is still moving forwards. It definitely is, and it will keep getting better. I just need to focus on one thing at a time. Today it was limpet mines (videos coming soon), tommorow is patch 1.31, and hopefully getting some decent testing done on it, for a mid-end week release.

9 thoughts on Lots of stuff on the way

  1. I don’t, personally, consider it much of an imposition to have a couple of close release patches. I may be the minority though. Still, it’s worth it, I mean your support of this game has been amazing. I’m used to large release titles that get a couple patches and then are left to die. I mean, I understand that time is money, especially when you have a staff to pay, and a lot of studios just don’t get the funding to commit to many (or sometimes any) patches, but it’s still a drag when that happens.

    So yeah, I say patch away.

  2. As I am one of the ones requiring 1.31 before anything works at all, I say stick the patch in and another one in a couple of weeks.

    It is not a BIG game right now. It will not keep anybody FULLY occupied (except you of course). Hopefully when it is a strategic game with random elements, we will all be free to play endlessly.

    Even then, fairly regular patches are still a good thing.

    Of course, what would make frequent patches even better is for them to be auto-detected on start up and installed with permission. But you know that already.

    Cheers

  3. I found myself not even playing the game anymore.

    Everytime I start up Impulse I check if there is an update to the game and I would look in the history to see what has changed.
    (There is your AutoCheck, Galactic Hunter!)

    So gimme the patch please!

  4. I guess there a few who are more likely to comment requesting a patch than those content and awaiting the expansion.

    either way its good to see honest communication by the developer, I have no doubt whatsoever that this game will be much bigger than it is at the moment and with the event of more SP missions and a rounded content then sales will adjust accordingly too :o)

  5. i just think that the challenges interface needs to be improved to keep people playing

    as it is currently, i find it very annoying to find the challenge that i wanna play (difficult def caspian) – the filters are too limited

    since i dont really hang around in the forums (like most i suspect) i dont really feel a sense of community developing….

    but the game is awesome for any of you prospective buyers, lol

  6. I don’t mind repeated patching. It is great you keep working on this game.

    Please include more scenarios in any future expansion packs – I may be in the minority, but I prefer more scenarios to more races. I could not find a way to use the new race from the last expansion pack, wished the weapons were available to all, and generally only bought it for the two new scenarios. When you add in more weapons, please don’t make them race-specific.

    I actually gave up gaming as my new year’s resolution, but might break it for a GSB expansion – its a good excuse to play through the scenarios again.

  7. On another note, I thought howitzers were single fire cannons. I just fielded them and they seemed to be autofiring… I was slightly let down by this.

    But overall the tribe ships are really cool.

  8. To get the community-thing going I propose the following:
    Cliff, could you program a list:
    -containing every possible feature for the game which you can imagine
    -maybe also the user-proposed features
    -some tags per item: till when it’s considered done (percent completed)
    -maybe every user should be able to vote for his favourite item – so you would instantly see what the crowd wants (what you do as first item is of course 100% up to you)

    …you know some collaboration tool for the game so to speak…

  9. Hi,

    I just discover this awesome GAME …. port this game on console via PS network …. you will be rich …..

    I was a FAN of master of orion fitting/battle system and GSB get all the essence of this game.

    continue to enhance GSB…. you have a diamond of fun in your hand.

    regards

Comments are currently closed.