It has been some time since I last posted about the Exode testing progress and related opinions. The past 2.5 months were spent watching for the release notice and reading the latest postings from Elindos. The development took on a little reset. Looking at the results of the previous testing of the game loop, I think it was decided that many things needed to be in place before further testing of the game loop could take place.
A few weeks ago, the months of work came to the players / testers willing to check out the latest direction and features that had been implemented. I for one really enjoy the part of testing. It gives you something that takes time to get, experience. Testing not only confirms the current features but also exposes things that were not thought of, or were thought could be put off till later.
This release came out with a huge upgrade to the interface. That which was presented near the end of the last testing of the game loop, is now the main screen. This shows you a picture of your planet and at the top of the screen is all the control / status buttons. These buttons enable you to look at and control what your crew is going to do.
One of the main activities in this phase of testing is the use of crew members to form teams and perform tasks. The tasks they can be assigned are those jobs that take a team of crew members to accomplish. This is where the crew member skills come into play. Getting a good combination of skills assigned to a project is the best way to get it done. Team work always wins. I expect that some of the crew interactions, once implemented, will give some good value entertainment.
The missions you can assign your crew are the kinds of things one would think need doing after you crash land on some distant planet.
- analyzing Ships damage
- analyzing This planet
- Colony Life
- Exploitation Techniques
- Ship Quarters
- New Habitat
Once your crew / team has finished a task, they should be better and be able to do more.
As it is at the time of this posting, time is frozen. The UI was not good enough on the initial release to enable players to manage a team. There were other issues which got fixed very quickly. The back and forth between tester and Dev, uncovered some details that need to be addressed.
- passenger generation and control.
- Cargo deployment
- Habitat assignment
- Food and storage
There are a few things that need to be rolled into the release before Time can be turned on. This last round of testing has been fun. And I know that the input from the testers was good and that it has affected the game to make it better for the player. Nothing like user input to show you what users will and want to do.
I am looking forward to the next release. It should be very soon after this post.
I think things are coming together very well, and the end produce will be amazing.
Till next time
Best