Beta 10 is Getting Bigger (Patreon)

So there's been an unexpected change of plans with Beta 10. As recently as last week I'd intended to put another prerelease version up on Patreon, possibly the last for Beta 10, which included pretty much everything going into the official release.

The remaining goal for that release was to simply clear out the final list of Beta 9 bugs once and for all, and add in a few more little features here and there. I was getting ever so close to the end of that list, with only a few items left before probably doing the prerelease last week, and then... one of the items triggered a chain reaction xD

It turns out I'd finally raised the priority of expanding a particular plot encounter (W-related), and while addressing that one aspect alone would not take too long, well... one thing led to another and now it's being expanded a good bit more. Since the aim here is to get rid of some plot dead ends and/or holes, obviously getting rid of some only to create more wouldn't be all that satisfactory, so I've continued working through the concept and we've now got a whole new ending in the works :P

And if that weren't enough, other related thoughts, plus simply the cost of getting back into working with the ending animation system (because of course we need new animations for the endings, right? :D), has prompted me to decide to almost certainly add a second new ending as well (which would be Cogmind's 9th).

This happens a fair bit in development here where it's more efficient to continue working with the same subsystem while I'm still familiar with it. At least this works well enough when the schedule is flexible since there isn't a hard deadline to hit, and gives better final results overall.

So as of right now the bulk of the first plot arc expansion is complete, I've just gotta finish animating that ending. Then I'll probably be animating the second new ending right away, before going back to actually add the content that allows access to it. There will be a new challenge involved.

The difficulty of these new endings will fall somewhere in the middle of all the others, and both are parts of the extended game.

Anyway, I'm being vague since I don't want to spoil it all, but if you really want some basic info about the endings and how to trigger them, here's some ROT-13 (big spoilers obviously):

1. Lbh jvyy or noyr gb zrrg hc jvgu Jneybeq va Pbzznaq, naq pbasebag ZNVA.P gbtrgure. Vs lbh jva naq Jneybeq vf fgvyy nyvir, lbh trg n qvssrerag raqvat. (Guvf vf npghnyyl ubj guvf ragver qrirybczrag qrgbhe jnf gevttrerq va gur svefg cynpr--nqqvat n zrffntr nobhg Jneybeq fbhaqvat n ergerng qhevat gur Erfrnepu nffnhyg gb trg cynlref gb yrnir engure guna svtugvat ba sberire. Bar guvat yrq gb nabgure...)

2. Erzrzore ubj ZNVA.P nfxf lbh gb fheeraqre jura lbh svanyyl ernpu uvz? Lbh'yy abj unir gung bcgvba :)

Gurer ner zber qrgnvyf vaibyirq jvgu obgu bs gurfr raqvatf gung V'z abg funevat urer--lbh'yy unir gb qvfpbire gurz yngre!

Of course I'd love to be able to share the animation work I've been doing (I mean everyone loves Cogmind GIFs, right?), but I never share ending-related material so it's been quiet around here lately...

Let's see... I can share an image of this new cannon:

But it's not for you ;)

TL;DR: Although Beta 10's main feature (full ambient audio) is ready for release, Cogmind is suddenly getting more plot content and two new endings so this will take longer.

Amusingly, shortly before taking this detour I actually stopped myself from adding a major new feature discussed in the #patron channel on Discord, at least in Beta 10:

It seems quite possible that we'll be getting a new class of 0b10 combat bot, although this alone would be a pretty big project so it's been moved to Beta 11. The "Heavy" class will tote a cannon, and probably be a new kind of challenge overall in terms of how they operate. Some concept art:

More on that later, of course--just thought I'd mention it here since it was covered on Discord. (Note that my Cogmind spinoff POLYBOT-7 also has a Heavy class.)