Monday, June 8, 2009

Samantha Update

Well, while WWDC happens (I've been reading tweets by Owen and crew), I'm here working on Samantha. I've completed the first of the stories, which was the tabbed interface. At least as well as I can, since I'm having a little trouble figuring out where to put a couple of things. :) I think that will be sorted out this week finally.
I've been working on traveling, which has been interesting. The big thing has been creating a list of destinations to which people can travel. I've completed that (yesterday) and then completed an XML file that contains the connections between those locations. It's a bit of a web rather than a grid, say, but it should be interesting. I will have to have some alpha testers verify that they can get to all of the locations properly. Since locations also determine who players can duel and chat with, it's something of a major story. AND it's getting close to done. I need to write the XML reader still, but that's on tomorrow's agenda.
I must say that I'm actually pleased by the progress so far. The ERD has a great start (I spent about a day going through it) and the UI is coming together. With the mechanics of travel worked out (I put in some bogus data to test it thoroughly) and the list of locations for 1.0 set, I think I'm doing pretty well. Not enough to be completely done by the end of the month, but things are definitely moving forward faster than I'd expected. Perhaps if I catch a few more breaks here in the next week or so, I'll end up with a reasonable alpha in about 2 weeks.
I've heard through the grapevine that approvals are taking longer, so things are getting a bit scary where timing is concerned. Looks like I won't be out right at July 15 but if I can get it close, then life will be a good thing, I hope.
Still no solution for the microtransactions, but I've been punting on that for the sake of game progress lately. I will need to get that resolved soon so this doesn't become a major issue (and put the kibosh on my plans for world domination, erm, making money :).
I'll post up some more later as things start to gel in other areas. Otherwise, assume I'm busting my ass trying to make the end-of-month deadline. :)