Build 1.9

Its finally here.

Build 1.9 is a huge step sideways in development. We are back to where we were about a month ago, however everything is now different. Without the crutch of the Flash Display list we have been forced to come to terms with the actual huge number of sprites in the game. The cell animations in particular are pretty huge, spanning 3 full 2048x2048 sheets. To compensate we have had to optimize in every conceivable way. Starling has given us the tools to do some pretty fancy things like creating dynamic scaling textures (as used in the vast majority of our UI as backgrounds).

The learning process was pretty swift thanks to the fact that the parent/child/syntax from Flash professional has been maintained in Starling. And as a result I would probably never really go back, though Flash Builder has its own set of quirks. (Autocomplete?!)

And now its mostly there, at a full 60 fps. Menu systems have been completely scrapped and rebuilt in a number of instances from how you interact with the later campaign levels, to saving/loading in the map editor, to how you manage adding/removing players in a local game. The number of changes is so vast that I don't even know exactly how much we have changed over for the better.

Tomorrow we are headed out to Burlington High School to talk about the development of Pathogen & design in general. Friday we are moving into our new space located in downtown Burlington near Perkins Pier. We will be in the shared space that JDK owns which is pretty exciting to be around more creative people.

Pictures will be up soon as we step into our second year as Birnam Wood Games