Still going...

Yeah, I'm obviously pretty bad at this. I'll probably say this every time I blog, but, I'll try and do more frequent posts in the future. I Swear!

So yes, work is still progressing on Artificial Intolerance. Slowly. Here's a list of what's new and what's changed:

- Map loading and level progression methods are complete.

- Saving/loading in game is supported. This is pretty cool, the save method creates a snapshot of the game field: objects, tiles, bullets, etc (pretty much everything except particles, which aren't exactly impossible to do, but unnecessary.) The data is then "stringified" and compressed using an LZW algorithm, and is ready for storage. When loading, the data is uncompresses and parsed then load method takes the data and reconstructs the level... just as you left it. It was actually easier to implement this then it sounds. It kinda makes me wish I was working on an RPG-like game that could really make use of this system.

- Levels are starting to flesh themselves out. I have 8 levels roughly mapped out so far, 4 of which are more or less complete and just waiting for better lighting placement and scenery.

- On that note, the level editor is still a nightmare to work with. :) thank god the public will never have to deal with it hey?

- Demo playback is fully functional, it's pretty fun watching replays and extremely helpful for debugging/beta testing. It's pretty simple how it works, when recording demos the Input class just spits out all player input (keys pressed, mouse position, etc) to what ends up being a MASSIVE array, playback simply takes that array and sends the input to the engine.

- STILL haven't started bosses. Looking forward to it, though :)