This week mostly focused on polishing the story elements. It is a bit fuzzy at the moment, but I’m sure that I renamed factions, changed some texts and the way I named files. I then ran a bunch of tests and fixed mistakes where needed. I also made use of new triggers and objectives in polishing up the main game.  A new ship arrived, and I added it to the game and the mission. I almost headed down the path of putting in a improved pause/unpause system – which started off as putting in a sound effect - I’ll kept in under wraps for now, it would be some fairly minor polish but would help with immersion and would be very cool. I stopped the process looking at the schedule. Will have to re-visit.

The weekend – Saturday – a somewhat unexpected addition of a new ship and with it a modified weapon system and properties.  This included some new code for the weapon and creating a particle system for it. I love the new ship and the additions - they did however cost most of the day – meaning that I’m at least a Saturday behind, either way I would make the same decision again.

Sunday I added this ship into the game, and then quickly realized that the AI wasn’t going to cut it. I improved the AI – its not perfect, but will have to do, at least it isn’t completely awful like it was before. Then tweaked the boss battle that this new ship is a part off. SO this one ship actually cost a Saturday and the morning of a Sunday.

Having mostly finished the main story portion of the Beta release – I then wanted to put in instant action scenario unlocks, so I spent adding code there. That code then being finished I started adding in the scenarios, and now I’m a bit burned out and realize its clear that I won’t be releasing the Beta today. Hopefully Tuesday… argh. My main concern is that there isn’t enough new content. I’m aiming at about an hour, without the added scenarios we are sitting in at about 20 minutes – depending on how players fare against the boss. The concern is that adding content is fairly difficult. Although the more content I add the more triggers, objective types and cut scene tools are in place. It seems like it should end somewhere, but at the same time thinking of the new scenarios I can see additions.