Project Update + Future of the Project

I'm sure you're tired of me saying this now, but the game isn't coming out on Tuesday.

I spent parts of the weekend working through the game, and I thought I'd be done with most of the bugs and be fine to release it in the state that it's in, but in reality the game hasn't turned out the way I've wanted it. It's also got some bugs with networking that kind of break the game, and have been very difficult to try and fix.

The code for all of the networking logic, the multiplayer state, all of the multiplayer UI is all done in a single file, which is about 2000+ lines long. At this point, whenever I would come across a bug, I would just throw in a new hotfix and that would (hopefully) remedy whatever the issue was. However, after adding so many 'hotfixes' and bandaids, the code base has become very difficult to work with.

The biggest issue with the game at the moment, is that it desyncs between clients. This has been so hard to try and fix, and it takes forever to debug. After a few times of hoping that I'd finally fixed it, it comes back. I decided to implement a 'resolving' system, where it would compare which lives have been lost on each end, and set both players lives to whoever got the highest value in their game. But this has bugs with it too, in that it will incorrectly set the lives.

The game at this stage is an insight as to what the final game could be, but it has some major bugs that require more effort than I'm willing to put in to fix, as they would most likely be hotfixes. There are other aspects of the game I don't like, like the visual aspect of it, and how the code base is laid out.

Which brings me to my next topic, the future of the game.

I was ready to throw in the towel last night and call it quits, I've run out of enthusiasm for the project and it's been fairly difficult to work on lately. But I still want to play some version of Starland TD again. Which is why I'm going to have one final attempt at making the game from scratch, but this time taking what I've learned from this project, and making it better and easier to work with.

I also have a final deadline in mind, which will be around the 23rd to the 31st of October. I have about a week around then that I can fully dedicate to the project outside of normal work. I plan on remaking the game, and finishing it around then.

I know it's a bit of a meme thing with indie devs to completely start from scratch halfway through the project, but part of me understands it. It's almost just as much work to go back and fix what I have, than to start fresh and build from the ground up a much better system. It's also more fun that way.

So I'm gonna take a little break and refresh. Then I'll get started on my final attempt at remaking starland. If I don't have it done by then, I'm calling it quits. Hopefully at that point someone else will come out with a Starland remake, maybe even by wmarsh himself.

Again, sorry for more delays.

-eragnarok.