April Progress Update (Patreon)

Nope, not getting into any sort of monthly routine here, but this is just a collection of random goings on and I needed a title :P

Beta 9.6

As you know, last week I ended up releasing more updates for Player 2, since it's both fresh in mind and I'm currently streaming that (and enjoying it greatly and plan to do more!).

Since then I've actually released a couple of silent hotfixes, so if you're playing and don't have Steam autoupdating (or use the DRM-free version) and want to play more P2 mode, I'd highly suggest getting the latest copy since it includes some important/useful stuff like getting P2 to actually use treads again! I'd accidentally broken that ability with the 9.6 feature intended to keep them from using too many of the same types of utilities xD

It so happens that the tread crushing ability is implemented like a utility effect, and for some reason I'd set them to max their usage of that effect to "1 part," meaning they were never allowed to attach more than one tread. This was especially noticeable coming out of the Scrapyard if you were trying to give them the two starting treads... I had also noticed some of this odd behavior in my stream last week, but didn't make the connection until it was brought to my attention under other circumstances as well. Working with AIs is always complicated since differentiating between bugs and intended AI decisions can be challenging in the best of times :P

Saves from pre-hotfix versions are compatible, hence the freedom to make them silent ;). Normally if there's a bug that requires a save-breaking fix, I'll be less likely to act quickly on that since it needs to be announced. Fortunately those are quite rare, and can generally just be postponed until the next major/save-breaking release.

Leaderboards

The Cogmind leaderboards are still in limbo, although I have heard from Will and things might start progressing again soon.

In the meantime I've made another set of new run data available for download here, which includes all Beta 9 runs through April 12. This is protobuf data, and technically it's wrapped in a .proto message I don't have, although I've also made Cogmind's scoresheet.proto file public on GitHub. Joshua has used that to create their leaderboard system which they've been posting results from on the forums, and made the code available here.

Ape has also used the new run data to test integration with their player record graphs, merging both new data with old! (Ape also analyzed data to find the most commonly fabricated parts, if you're interested :D) (fab data is beta 1~8 only)

REXPaint

It had been almost two years since I updated the REXPaint gallery, so it's good that I've finally struck that off the TODO list...

There was a lot to catch up on!

I keep a folder on my desktop where I drop REXPaint works that I discover mostly through Twitter but also via the forums, r/RoguelikeDev, and other sources, and eventually get around to processing. This batch being so large it took quite a while to prepare. Everything needs a description/name, proper link to its source, and custom thumbnail that I prepare in Photoshop. I'm pretty quick at it, but altogether it still eats up time with so many images :P

Also as usual it gets me thinking about REXPaint 2.0, which is fated to happen one day and bring with it more cool features, but not a great idea before Cogmind is at least to 1.0 since RP2 is a bigger project than just a few extra features.

Miscellaneous

Last week I ended up finally doing taxes, so I guess that counts as work since it's something I have to do and the only reason it takes any time at all is because of Cogmind xD (business stuff, yay...)

I also set aside some time to play Ragnarok for r/TraditionalRoguelikes, since it was about time to do another something for that fledgling sub. It's a good opportunity to try "new"/different roguelikes to see what kinds of things I've missed. Pretty interesting game! Doesn't really get talked about much these days, though--although quite an extensive roguelike, it didn't enjoy the same long-term traction that the likes of NetHack, Angband, and ADOM have, for various reasons.

Probably the big news here is that I'M ACTUALLY FINALLY STARTING ON BETA 10 PROPER THIS WEEK. Like right now. Today :)

Lots to do, so I'm going to stop typing this now and go play with some new drones.