Hi again players!
It’s been a full-on week of Verkalium development, with lots of enhancements and new features in the game, as well as the release of a “properly” playable Demo version uploaded to the Verkalium website.
I know the first demo was only partially playable, without the ability to save your game, and no aliens. Yes – that sucked, and things have just changed.
Here’s a (probably incomplete) list of the new game features playable in the Demo version:
- New game splash screen
- New background music loop and game-event sound effects
- Game Menu (with working saves/autosave)
- New Game Settings (choose your race, galaxy size, number of opponents, name your homeworld)
- Enhanced Starmap images (not a biggie but it is something)
- Colony population sliders
- Dynamic Build Queue
- Ship design mode
- Lot of new ship modules
- New Tech Tree
- New Workers/Commanders section with training mode
- Improved Races section with new Diplomacy system
- New Space Battles/Ground Combat/Colony Invasion systems
- Functional Victory/Loss game conditions
Please be aware that while the playable demo is mostly playable, I’ve already found a few bugs which have been noted for fixes in the next pass. Here’s what we’re aware of:
Construction of Military Barracks may not complete. This will affect a player’s ability to invade opponents’ colonies. I’ve got this down as a top-priority fix because a satisfying Victory is probably not possible without it. Found this is a rendering issue – the barracks is being constructed ok but the sprite isn’t displayed… game should progress ok. Bug has been squashed for the next version.
Some of the planet images are not being displayed. This looks to be a straightforward fix and I’ll implement soon-as.
Note – there are minor differences in gameplay between the web/demo and the desktop version, but they’re 99.5% identical. Tghe differences are mainly in code strcture rather than gameplay mechanics/logic.
Ok, that’s about all to report for today.
Enjoy the game!
