The Last of the Bugs?

0.7.3 is out, now. So far, so good: no bug reports. I've got some balance and minor feature issues to iron out, and I think that (plus squishing any bugs that crop up) will constitute an 0.8 release. Depending on the reception for it, I'll probably just renumber 0.8 to 1.0 and make it the first non-beta release. That's if all is well with 0.8, of course.

My thoughts are increasingly turning to the next project; I've got enough ideas (both submitted ideas and ones I've come up with) to get to at least a 1.1, probably a 2.0. But I think I'd like to take a break from MG after 1.0 is released, work on something else for a while. The other roguelike that I've been toying around with is a potential to be that next project, but I'm still not sure.

Another day, another release...

I went ahead and pushed out a quick 0.7.2 release, mostly to fix a pair of crash bugs. I was hoping to avoid having too many more releases before a non-beta, but I'd like to nip swarms of people crashing at the same point in the bud.

Incidentally, another bug I ran across was one relating to the game pegging the CPU at 100% usage (or less, if you had a multi-core processor, but either way, it pegged whatever core was running the game). Apparently, this is normal behavior for an application that uses a loop of Application.DoEvents calls to simulate a pause for user input. I found a quick hack that works well enough, but I'd like to do better for the next roguelike project. .NET has some support for asynchronous method calls, maybe I can get some traction there. Hmm.

Too long in coming...

Well, it's been a while (again) but 0.7.1 is about ready to roll. I'm doing some last-minute testing, then it'll be out the door.

I've been banging around a little with what I think will follow the GA release of MG; a roguelike of a more epic scale, more focused on number-crunching...more Angband, less NetHack. Is that actually going to be the next project released? No idea. Time will tell.

MageGuild v0.7

Finally! MageGuild 0.7 is released. After this, it's bug-fixes and balance-tweaks left and right, and then we'll be into full-on public release...And on to a new project, for a while.

Slowly, slowly...

More progress. Two large features down for 0.7, and the other three mostly done. At this point, I'm plugging holes, fixing bugs, and cleaning up messes. Release date? Soon. (Ah, vagueness...the final refuge of the terminally busy.)

Progress!

Well, for two nights running now, I've made some headway on MageGuild. It feels good to code again...it's funny how easy it is to lose track of how much one enjoys a hobby. I've been working on adding fixed content to the end of the game...yeah, sure, I'll raise the cone of silence: boss levels.

I'm...extremely hesitant to put a timeframe on 0.7, still. I'm not 100% sure how long things are going to take, nor how much longer I'll be able to dedicate time regularly, and I'd rather not issue a date I can't keep. Regardless; MageGuild is not dead, development continues.

On The Lack of Time

Progress on MageGuild has slowed to a crawl, alas. My real job's been hammering me pretty badly, and I've been lucky to find time to eat and sleep, let alone to work on MG. Regardless, there is progress. The game plan for 0.7 was a big pile of content and a small pile of rebalancing.

The rebalancing is largely done; hopefully, this will curtail the grotesque HP/MP gaining that was going on, as well as weaken some of the most overused spells. Some edges were changed and added in this, so there should be some new options there, as well.

The content...is coming along. The new item type that I'm adding is taking quite a long time to finish. They're relatively rare, but they're quite powerful, and they do things that MG hasn't seen before. Which means that I'm forging quite a bit of new territory, when it comes to coding.

So, in short, progress continues. I'm hesitant to put a date on release for 0.7 until the work situation settles down a bit, but when I know, you'll know.