Making progress

So it seems it is less difficult than I first thought. I already made a improved system to connect to the server.

There is still much to do though, but I assume it will be finished much earlier than expected. Need to figure some things out yet, but the engine is much easier to edit now, as I reorganized all elements of the engine in total.

There will be some changes, in interface AND in gameplay. As I already mentioned in a previous post, there was added a new gameplay feature before I started on the engine, it won't change the game dramatically, but it will enlarge the replay value of every part of the levels, and I'm sure people will like it :)

On the other side the login/connect screens are slightly changed: Connecting to the server and logging in are now separated, what shouldn't be bad for the user by the way, but it is easier to edit things in that way, and it makes me able to show you a new bulletin or whatever in the home-screen, even if you're not logged in yet (e.g.: "If you can't log in..." or "New in the update:...").

When you log in, there should be (still working on this part) a status/progress screen, that shows your stats (your score, playing time, the part of the world you've already discovered etc) and the stats of other players (like the global high-score list).

Yes, those are not parts essential to the main engine, but I could build everything a lot faster if I build it in right now.

So, still nothing interesting to show yet, but there is progress.

Hidden progress

As I've said before, Special Cube Force will remain paused until the online engine is completely rewritten. So you won't receive any updates until that, nor will the server be online.

I'm currently working on the engine though, it really takes some work (as I expanded SCF quite some times), there is really much to change, as everything is connected to everything in the scripts. But I'll manage to adjust all of this properly, even if I have no idea how long this will take.

Updating all of this means however, that the engine will be way better after the next release, and I'll make it so that I can adjust things more easily. After that I can update things that you are able to see (as the matter of fact, I already added something nice, and it will be available as soon as possible).

So, in short: Updating everything for the next release will take a while, but it has a bright side too. ;)

Ah, and when I release the next update, perhaps there will be people who actually READ all of this... But I'll keep reporting updates here anyway, just in case. :P