As I was play testing the soon to be released iteration 14 – the game crashed, frequently. The logs told me that it was a file access issue – what was happening was that sound files were locked when in use (creation/playing) and when the game engine tried to use them for another sound it would result in a crash.

I tried a few things, did some experiments, almost gave up on releasing iteration 14 without some sound bugs, but eventually prevailed and learned a few things about the project’s sound engine (which is an open source Ogre wrapper (a piece of code that creates a framework between two systems) for OpenAL. At one point I thought I might have to give up on this wrapper and try another sound engine – in this case FMOD was a potential. One issue is that FMOD is a licensed product (OpenAL and the wrapper is free), another is that it would cost some time to convert. Luckily I don’t have to think about this for now, but who knows what the future will bring.

So anyway, lots of bug fixes, tweaks, and play testing. I also did a one line of code addition that really helps out turret and command mode, feel very good about it now, hoping to potentially recruit some testers before releasting iteration 14 during the upcoming week.