Dev-Diary: 69

Hello!

So since the last update, I’ve been focused on a couple of things. The first, and biggest, is a tutorial! It took some time and effort, but I managed to get a fully-fledged tutorial all set-up! While skippable, the game directs new players into the tutorial first and walks them through the basics on navigation and game mechanics. M.I.S. has a LOT of freedom in what you can do, and there is quite a bit of information to take in constantly, so having a tutorial to help ease new players in was something requested by a lot of testers. Fingers crossed it not only helps new players, but also works consistently!

I’ve also been working on new information panels and other small aesthetic updates. The Station screen now also shows you information about your shield and repair recharge times, as well as which modules your repair functions are operating on. Another, less useful, visual update is intentional visual artifacts! As your station gets ripped apart by Xenos, your screens will slowly fill up with pixel-line cracks. The obstruction is minimal, unless you’re about to completely collapse, but it’s enough to be very slightly annoying, and to show you that you better hurry up and fix things!

I’ve also made a solid handful of balancing tweaks and other bug fixes. The base difficulty has been reduced slightly, and random events are tighter and more accurate to your difficulty level; no more having entire armies spawn on you within the first 15 minutes of gameplay! I’ve still got a number of issues I need to address that have been brought up by testers, but I’m working through them. 🙂

As almost every year, December is a very hectic time for both myself and my family, so I’ve been jumping between project work and personal work a lot more over the past few weeks. As always, I may or may not have an update at the start of the new year, but I will be back at some point in January!

As for my testers, I should have the next stable build up sometime over the next few days! I just want to check a few more bugs out.

And as for everyone, thank you for listening to me ramble for another year! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and as always, all the best~!
^,,^