Managing Multiple Game Objects in AS3

Managing loads of objects in a game can be one of the most challenging aspect of game programming. In sprite heavy games you are constantly making, moving and destroying objects. While much of my code is reused from game to game I always find myself trying to find better/easier ways to manage enemies, bullets and effects.

While I was teaching at AIA I tried teaching the "make an object that holds sprite vars and place it in an array" method. This is a commonly accepted method of managing sprites and their variables. This method was much too complicated for the programming level of the students so I tried to work up and easier way. I found you can simply use the Display List.

Step 1: Object Containers
Create a container for every groups of objects. Enemies, bullets, effects, etc. If you plan on only having sprites use a sprite for your container, if you will be adding movieclips use a mc for your container.


var cBullets:MovieClip;
...
cBullets = new MovieClip();
addChild(cBullets);
...


Step 2: Adding Objects
This is a bit old school but just dump you variables into your sprite/movieclip and add it to the container.

var aBullet:Bullet = new Bullet();
aBullet.speed = mySpeed;
aBullet.angle = myAngle;
aBullet.life = myLife;
cBullets.addChild(aBullet);


Step 3: Loop the container
Now loop through the container and operate on the objects


var i:Number = cBullets.numChildren;
while(i--){
var sp = cBullets.getChildAt(i);
sp.x += Math.cos(sp.myAngle) * mySpeed;
sp.y += Math.sin(sp.myAngle) * mySpeed;
//you can put collision here or whatever else you need
sp.life--;
//if your game sprite is a Sprite
if(sp.life == 0){
cBullets.removeChildAt(i);
sp = null;
// yes, a factory would be ideal
}
//if your game sprite is a MovieClip
if(sp.currentFrame == sp.totalFrames){
cBullets.removeChildAt(i);
sp = null;
}else{
sp.nextFrame();
}
}


I have not tested the efficiency of this method but it makes for very fast prototyping

Player Feedback - Hear the problem

Without question, player feedback is an imperative step in game development. However, player feedback must be filtered.

When players give you feedback they will most often give you solutions. You must look past these suggestions (though they can be sound) and find the underlying problem that is frustrating players.

Once you have identified the underlying problem you can plan out multiple solutions. Now you can evaluate each solution. Does it fit your game design? How expensive is it to implement? Can my team do this? Cull the less effective solutions and highlight the best solution.

An Example: SKATE 2
A favorite game of my mine, SKATE, was bemoaned because you would not "get off the skateboard and walk around." This complaint (suggestion) was repeated endlessly. So in SKATE 2 this feature was implemented. Developer interviews described this feature was very expensive time/animation wise. In the end getting off your skateboard in SKATE 2 was frustratingly clunky.

Perhaps highlighted the problem (players want to get to any point without being limited by skateboard movement) would reveal other solutions that would have been cheaper to implement and had a better outcome.

I would rather have a "magic cursor" that could move the skater to any point, move around objects, etc. One could argue this breaks the immersion of the game but the game already has reset points and the resulting controls of getting off the skateboard, walking and moving objects was insanely frustrating.

So the next time a player gives you a suggestion to make your game better, thank them, document, then look past the suggestion to the problem hiding behind the player's words.

Fallout 3 - perfect minigames!

A few posts back I complained about how poor the minigames are in AAA titles. My complaints are:
1. The minigame does not represent the action the player is performing
2. The minigame is a clone of an old arcade game
3. The minigame is just afterthoughts with no design. (e.g. QTE or Simon)

A beacon in the darkness is Fallout 3. The lockpicking and hacking minigames are perfect representations of their respective actions. Lockpicking uses the dual control sticks perfectly. Hacking is a clone of Mastermind but the implementation creates a nice hacker feeling and really makes the player stop and THINK about what they are doing.

A was very impressed by how difficulty ramps in these minigames. The more strict areas for lockpicking and the longer words for hacking make a great difficulty ramp.

So Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 2 take note, the bar has been set.

Squiggle Squid is up!

Squiggle Squid is launched!

Play Squiggle Squid on Kongregate!

Though I wrote the prototype 3 years ago, I have only been in proper development for the past 6 months. Squiggle Squid is exclusive to Kongregate for 1 week but after that it will be available for licensing and distribution.

Chris Rickwood did the amazing music.

Please play and rate!

Squiggle Squid - coming soon!

My new game Squiggle Squid will be launching very soon.



I wrote the prototype for this game 3 years ago! I am so happy I finally got to finish it.

Here are a couple gameplay videos.


In later levels Squiggle Squid has to brave the deep ocean.

Top 10 on FHM

This is a bit odd but someone forwarded me the the FHM All Time Top games site:
http://www.fhm.com/100greatestgames/

The CN's game Flight of the Hamsters is currently #6! Weird.

New Game - Batman: Brave and the Bold

The Cartoon Network Games Studio has a new game! And it's Batman!

http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/games/batmanbb/dynamicdoubleteam/

We had to do this game REALLY fast (4-5 weeks) and start with almost no assets. My hope was to make a fun fighting mechanic and highlight the important aspects of the new Batman series such as non-Gotham locals and teaming up with other heroes. So this game is fighting space pirates on an alien world and Blue Beetle is your team mate.

Since we could not afford level design/progression we took the fighting mechanics as far as we could in a single-screen game. There is the usual punching but there is also and uppercut and a footsweep that place the enemies into special airborn and prone states respectively. Blue Beetle is available through "call-in" attacks. Using these moves can combine in different ways. If an enemy is airborn or prone Blue Beetle will do a different call-in.

When I design games I always try to think, "whats the most fun 5 seconds?" In this game my ideal sequence was:

1. You have 3 meters of Blue Beetle call-in
2. Perform standard Blue Beetle call-in, he flies by hitting your target a few times
   
3. Batman punches the same enemy (keeping the combo going)
4. Batman uppercuts the enemy in the air
5. Blue Beetle call-in. Since an enemy is in the air, BB does a contextual attack for airborn enemies. BB jumps out and beam attacks the enemy in the air
   
6. Batman hits the enemy a couple times on the way down
7. Enemy is now prone on the ground
   
8. Blue Beetle call-in. Since an enemy is prone, contextual attack for prone enemies. BB smashes down with a huge hammer popping the enemy back into the air.
9. Batman hits with a jump kick for the final blow.

It sounds like a crazy string of stuff but it happens super fast in the game and is the best way to score huge points. Our programmer totally nailed the feel of the juggling; all the Batman combat and Blue Beetle call-ins feel perfect.

There are 2 enemies: a easy to defeat fodder enemy and a really powerful enemy that will allow you to do the crazy combo outlined above.

I think the game turned out great. We are hoping to revisit the game engine and really blow out a part 2 with exploration, more enemies/locations, bosses, etc. Here's hoping Batman is a hit and we get to make another game!

SIEGE recap

Wow, SIEGE really grew this year! Last year I was in and out pretty fast due to my surgery but this year I got to stick around and meet many local developers. I was surprised how many people in Atlanta are making games.

I really want to make an effort to socialize with local developers more. I feel that outside perspectives on issues lead to new solutions. It's easy to get entrenched in your comfort zone and talking to new people can be inspirational and push you in new directions. Iron sharpens iron and all that.

I would like to have been on some more game design specific panels but the most relevant panels to my skills were on Sunday and I could not be at the conference that day.

I would really like to see Epic attend as they are the biggest develop in the Southeast. I am hoping for some lectures next year too. Well, SIEGE you next year.

Another Fireworks tweak

One of the things that drives me crazy about Fireworks CS3 is the recent font list. It's a terrible "feature" that hinders my workflow. I just found a way to disable it.

http://www.fireworkszone.com/g-2-368

I was a bit confused on how to get this working so here are the steps.

1. Download that package and unzip it.
   
2. Put [Recent Font List - 0 (Off).jsf] into [C:\Documents and Settings\userName\Application Data\Adobe\Fireworks CS3\Commands]
3. Now in Fireworks select: Commands > Recent Font List - 0 (Off).jsf
4. Restart Fireworks

The recent font list is gone! Rejoice.

Speaking at SIEGE 2008

I will be speaking on some panels at SIEGE 2008. I will be speaking about game design/development and Flash game development. This is the only game conference in the Southeast (that I know of) so if you are in the area and are involved/interested in game development you should check it out.

I have really been looking forward to SIEGE this year. Last year I was recovering from back surgery at the time of the convention so it was very difficult to be there. This year I will be able to spend more time socializing and meeting people.

Secret Saturdays - Code of the Cryptids

Two games in one day!

Code of the Cryptids is a game for the new show Secret Saturdays. This game is a rework of an older game for the now-defunct Juniper Lee. I was glad to be able to revisit this game. The Juniper Lee game had massive difficulty and communication issues.

Difficulty was eased with reworked ability structure and level design. The most difficult to use ability was removed entirely.

A new map screen and icons everywhere should help players understand the "you can't go there unless you have that ability" issue that plagued the previous game.

Ben 10 Bounty Hunters

Ben 10 Bounty Hunters, the CN Games Studio's biggest game ever! Ben 10 Bounty Hunters is an 8-player multiplayer battle. (Sorry IE only for now)

The Idea
Inspired by games like Soldat and Gunster, I wanted to make a 2D free-for-all battle game that was kid friendly. Kid friendly means, no real guns, no killing, etc. I also wanted to simplify and add some light auto-balancing features.

The Design
Ben 10 is an awesome property but it was impossible to use the main aliens from the show. The sizes are too radically different for a multiplayer game (Humongasaur vs. Gray Matter would be pretty unbalanced) and the show was moving towards the new Alien Force brand. We needed a setting that worked for story and game design.

The Mythos
We spoke with the show creator about the idea of 2 factions of bounty hunters (Six-Six is a favorite) that constantly wage battle to keep the other from finding the Omnitrix. While we were not using the core Ben Aliens as playable characters we highlight the setting of the Ben universe. The 2 factions of bounty hunters, Steglocks and Zyllids, fight on Wildvine's home planet among the ruin of a Gray Matter city or on the volcanic homeworld of Heatblast.

The Weapons
Kid friendly means no killing so the bounty hunters use "capture gel" weapons. Players are suspended for a moment is a bubble of goo. The weapon designs were tough. We wanted them to be recognizable as the core battle weapons (e.g. rifle, shotgun, SMG, etc.) but not look like real guns. I think they turned out perfect.

Players only have 1 primary weapon at a time and a backup weapon if primary weapon runs out of ammo. Primary weapons run out of ammo quickly. If a player is dominant with the shotgun, they run down to their backup weapon and give other player a chance to take them out at least once.

Weapons are designed for player skill and balance. The rifle does good damage but is hard to use due to the required precision. The shotgun does crazy damage but you have to be right next to your opponent. Both these weapons can be difficult to use so we have the spread gun. It is a mix of shotgun and rifle; it does a bit less damage but it easier to use.

Oh yeah, we have 2D sniping.

Capturing
The use of the "capture in place" mechanic worked out well. Players are released right where they are captured stacked with a few seconds of invincibility. This means no spawn camping. No area camping either because if you capture someone in a well-defensible area (or next to the rocket launcher spawn you were camping) you better run because they will be coming at you with invincibility in a few moments.

Levels
I was fretting over level design from the beginning. That was a big mistake that hindered the game in the early stages of design. I was focused on making a really flexible system for level design. In the end it didn't seem to matter as long as I followed a few simple rules (no dead ends. mix open and closed areas, etc.). Placement of items was used primarily to affect the level design as needed.

One thing I am really proud of if the level cropping. The levels are designed for 8 players but they are also designed to be cropped smaller for 2 or 4 players. No more running around a huge 8 player level looking for the 1 other guy on the map.

What's Next?
We couldn't simulate the kind of traffic CartoonNetwork.com brings so some unexpected bugs have popped up. We are fighting stability issues and making updates as fast as possible.

A great many things were cut for this release (what is that XP bar for?) but keep an eye our for all those goodies in a future update :)

Fireworks Hitbox Tool

Fireworks is my tool of choice when doing design mock-ups. I use Fireworks to work up scale, hitboxes, etc. My method for making hitboxes has always been to draw the boxes, check their dimensions in the Properties inspector and then write it on screen using the text tool.

THERE"S GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY!

I just wanted to display the size of the box on-screen so I wrote an extension for Fireworks that does just that. Here is a red and a green hitbox.

AutoShape Hitboxes

Just drop these in your Fireworks CS3 or MX AutoShapes folder (.../Adobe Fireworks CS3\Configuration\Auto Shapes). Use the control point in the bottom right to scale.

Here is an example of them being used.

Ben 10 Bounty Hunters - Coming Soon!

Check out the trailer for the Cartoon Network Games Team's next game!
Ben 10 Alien Force: Bounty Hunters
www.ben10bountyhunters.com

This is the biggest project we have ever undertaken. 8-player real-time battles and team battles.

The entire team will be playing on launch day. Come get some.

New Game - Flapjack Adventure Bound

Our team launched a new game!

Flapjack: Adventure Bound

The idea was to create a dynamic where players would have to juggle their 2 characters in the air and create risky situation to keep their chains and therefore get the maximum score.

I was hoping to have a light rhythm element but it did not work out. The idea was that instead of the normal "hit it on the beat or you fail" design we could accomplish more of a "if you play well you get the most points and ADDITIONALLY you make a nice rhythm." After many attempts it just wasn't working out or executing the music aspect would negatively affect the core mechanic. Our team came up with some great designs though that I hope we can use in another game.

Our programmer implemented nice physics which really improved design by creating fun, bouncy scenarios. And, of course, all the art looks amazing.

I think Flapjack is our best new show. I am glad our team got the chance to make the launch game.

AAA game = terrible minigames?

I am not one to mindlessly rail on games. I love games. I also make games and I know how the development process goes: things go wrong, problems appear at the last moment, etc. As my good friend Steve told me, "Games are never done, they are just released."

That being said, I have to call game design foul of the recent trend of amazing AAA games neglecting the design of their minigames.

Bioshock, one of the best games I have ever played, used Pipedream as a metaphor for hacking. Why would you use this old arcade game? It's not a good metaphor for hacking and its definitely not fun. OK, I get the water theme but when a nearly 20 year old arcade game is sitting in the middle of one the most amazing, immersive games ever, I have to raise the question, did they attempted to push the design of their hacking game? Did they ever try to push past "Pipedream was a game with water in it!"?

(On a side note, I love taking pictures. I don't even like taking pictures in real life but for some reason I freak over taking pictures in games).

You know how there are crimes so terrible that even other criminals will be sickened by them? These are crimes against the very fabric of humanity. Crimes like this exist in game design. The most horrific offender? Using Simon as a design solution.

Mass Effect, an unprecedented achievement of human emotion, conversation and story telling, actually falls a step BELOW using Simon with their "decryption" mechanic. Their gambling (much like Pazaak in KOTOR) is simplified Blackjack.

Player are going to HAVE to spend time playing these minigames. Put some effort into their design. Make them compliment the game, connect with the metaphor and make the game better. Right now they are only degrading some great game experiences.

I understand that minigames offer another gameplay scenario to break up the core game. I love a well done minigame. I think Triple Triad (in Final Fantasy 8) was not only a wonderful minigame but one of the smartest card game designs going.

I have to believe there are game designers on these 200 person team who WANT to make compelling minigames and not just throw a dart at a list of MAME or parlor games. They want to take on the challenge of designing a mechanic that really communicates hacking or decrypting. Give that person a couple of months and see what they can do.

Tarnation is the weekly challenge at Kongregate!

http://www.kongregate.com/games/bradido/tarnation

So exciting to see Tarnation with achievements!

When designing Tarnation I had a goal for the scoring system: you play the game in about 15 minutes but your score can range greatly.

I feel like too many Flash game high-scores are purely reliant on how LONG you play the game, not neccesarily how well. While the scoring system in Tarnation turned out too complex and not communicated well (sorry everyone) it accomplished this goal.

From my scoring calculation I knew getting over 100,000 points was possible. Howver, I am not good enough at my own game to do this. Up until now, from looking at Kongregate and MochiLeaderboards, only about 11 people had been able to complete the game with a score over 100k. Now lots people have gotten over 100k.

Apparently having badge on your game makes people much more critical of it.

Tarnation - with MochiScores

Now Tarnation supports highscores anywhere!

Tarnation with high scores

After a couple of days of testing to make sure things are working ok I will update my "free to use" version with this one.

Everything looks good so I am releasing the version with MochiScores free for use:
This includes the SWF and a thumbnail.
http://www.bulletpattern.com/tarnation/tarnation_v5p.zip

Here is the promopack with screenshots, sprites, etc. These are only for promotion of Tarnation:
http://bulletpattern.com/tarnation/tarnation_promopack.zip

Only 2 people that I know of beaten 100,000 points.

DS Colors!

A while back a friend at work showed me Colors!, a homebrew application that let's you paint on the Nintendo DS. It's a really amazing application; it even uses the DS pressure sensitivity for brush size and opacity.

Anyway I finally did a painting I am not embarrassed to show and posted it to the gallery.
Brasshat

Browse the gallery. Some really amazing artist have Colors! and are doing some mind-blowing work on the tiny DS screen.

If you have a homebrew cart and like to draw, pick it up and submit your stuff.

Tarnation - free for use

Quite a few people have contacted me about using Tarnation on their website. If you are interested in posting Tarnation on your website here is a version that anyone is free to post.

This version of the game does not have high scores. This version had runs MochiAds and is free to use. http://www.bulletpattern.com/tarnation/tarnation_v5p.zip

Here is a promo pack of screenshots, logos, characters, etc. in PSD format here. These are for promotion of Tarnation only. ( 3.45 megs) :
http://www.bulletpattern.com/tarnation/tarnation_promopack.zip

This version of Tarnation runs MochiAds but if you are interested in removing the ads from the game and putting in a intro with your site logo and/or implimenting high scores you can do so for a one-time licensing fee.

Contact me at bradido[ a t ]gmail.com with any questions.

Tarnation wins Kongregate weekly contest!

Last week Tarnation won the weekly contest at Kongregate.com!

Thanks to everyone who played and voted.

Tarnation beta on Kongregate

My new game, Tarnation, is live:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/bradido/tarnation

Kongregate has been down today so here is an alt link:
http://www.bulletpattern.com/tarnation/ (I put Google ads on there, please don't judge me too harshly)

Please play it, submit bugs/comments and give it a high rating :)

Sometime soon I will post the entire process of creating the game.

Painting - squid

I thought I should do the ubequitous squid piece.

Programming Spirit Revived

Recently Cartoon Network invited Flash expert Grant Skinner to give us a 2-day course on Actionscript 3. It was really informative and, perhaps more importantly, it was very inspiring.

I had this idea a while back to do terrain based on perlin noise for Flash but I didn't pursue it. Inspired by the course I did a small demo.



It read the perlin noise and creates terrain. I made the low areas blue (water!) and the higher areas dirt and grass. I put gskinner ColorMatrix class in there too to fool with colors.

Digital painting

About 6 months ago I got a tablet PC at work and was very excited. I started working in Alias Sketchbook often for concepting. Just doing sketches for level layouts and quick "communication sketches" which is my description of my er, shall we say, unrefined drawings that I give to the artists to communicate my ideas.

Recently I got rid of my tablet pc because it was underpowered and none of the CS3 suite worked with the pressure sensitivity. I just got a new laptop and a Wacom. Wacom tablets are so much nicer than tablets for drawing its crazy. I had no idea of the difference.

I have always been blown away by digital paintings at site like conceptart.org and and my previous attempts at digital painting were a disaster. Recently I found this tutorial and this one. This guys art blows me away. After laboring over his tutorials and fooling around I think I have found a style that suits me pretty well.

I am going to be trying to do a couple quick paintings a week and post them so I can practice and (hopefully) track my development. These are just practice pieces.

Flower

Fish

Once I work my way through the Fs I will move onto the Ks.

I already redid some art in my game this way so you can see the updated stuff in the alpha posting.

That game sucks

Useless Words
I am getting really tired of hearing games described in such arbitrary terms such as "awesome" and "sucks." I am 33 years old and my friends tell me games suck. This kind of rhetoric has no value to me. Its for teens communicating to their friends in their vague and undeveloped language.

I actually had a friend say to me, "That game sucks so bad... I played through it 3 times and..."

So the game "sucked" yet you played the game in its entirety 3 times?

Granted, I am sensitive to the feeling of the people who made these games. I know they worked hard and more importantly game developers always WANT to make a game that will be loved by all.


Fun vs. Flaws
Of late I have been trying to think of games as fun vs. flaws. Nearly all games have SOME fun element to them and ALL games have flaws. The quesion is: do the flaws outweigh the fun?

I don't think any game can be free of flaws but it seems a game can be damned for a flaw that does not affect gameplay just as quickly as kiss-of-death flaws like unresponsive controls or a bad camera.

I nitpick games probabaly more than most but I always try to ask myself, "Does this really detract from the gaming experience?" Most often that answer is no, I am just nitpicking elements that could have been better with unlimited time and budget.

Useless Language on the Horizon
Recently I keep seeing things such as "this game is too repetitive" and "this game is too short" and serious flaws. So is Tetris flawed because its repetitive? I know this is not an apples to apples comparison but these statements are being used more and more by gaming journalist and quickly becoming damning features of a game.

The problem isn't that the game is repetitive. ALL games are repetitive! The problem is the core mechanic cannot withstand be played numerous times without becoming easily mastered and therefore boring.

Stupid Example
Jaws Unleashed scored around a 4 at every review site. I will not argue that game is seriously flawed but, my god, that game is so fun. I have played other higer scoring games that don't even come to close to the good times I have had with Jaws Unleashed. The flaws in that game are ENOURMOUS but come on, playing a shark and spitting torpedoes at offshore oil rigs, it doesn't get better than that.

Tarnation - alpha

The game I have been working on has a nice big update.

Tarnation

Any comments on the game are welcome. I am trying to make as much time as I can to work on it and get it done.

Speaking at GGDA tonight.

Tonight I will be giving my lecture of Common Flash Game Design Mistakes at the November Georgia Game Developer meeting.

My presentation has been fine tuned and I will have a computer with a more reliable battery :)

Cartoon Network MiniMatch games

Long time readers (i.e. no one) will remember Big Shot Checkers from a while back. This game was designed in mind with our upcoming multiplayer games system. Now this system is live.

MiniMatch

MiniMatch is CartoonNetwork.com's new virtual community based around playing games and getting stuff for your avatar. The more you play the more points your earn.

We made Big Shot Checkers multiplayer and created 2 other games. Again, the goals were 1) classic games 2) fast gameplay 3) CN brand integration.

Ben 10 Galactic Matchup
Like match four but when you make a match you damage your opponent. Player can make combos and even matches for the other player, resulting in self-inflicted damage. Each alien of Ben 10 is represented and when a player makes a match their matched pieces animate away in the style of the chosen alien.

Camp Lazlo Battle Beans
You remember how painfully boring those first 5 minutes of Battleship are?
"e5?"... miss
"b2?" ... miss
etc.

Well Battle Beans removes the boring bit at the start and adds a bit of skill to making your shots. Choose from 3 different teams and sink your opponents unwitting "team."

I am super happy with all 3 games. I think our team really nailed the goals of the design.

SIEGE Lecture Slides

I finished my lecture and panels last weekend for SIEGE. It was a great experience. I met a lot of really nice, talented people. I hope I get invited to speak again. I want to use my slides again which were a ton of work :)

I thought I would give Google Presentations a shot so I could work on my presentation over lunch at work and at home. Somewhere along the way it lost all my bolding and italics.

While that will make me not use for a while, I can publish my presentation which is nice.

Common Flash Game Design Mistakes

Tarnation - sort of alpha

I decided a while back that I really needed to do a game outside of my work at Cartoon Network. I wanted to do a game where I did everything like in the old days.

I did the prototype for this game in February. I finally bought a new computer for home so I could really focus on getting games done outside of work.

Here is the alpha-ish build. Only the 1st level is really tuned.

Tarnation (early build)

The idea came from the fact I cannot play RTS games. I tried to imagine what a casual RTS would be like. Also I really wanted to be able to say, "This game is based on a really sound game design principle." I thought that would guarantee the fun.

Back at GDC 2005 at the game designer workshop we did and exercise where we had to tune a giant robot to be killed by some tanks at the very last second. The idea was if you tune the robot just right you will get that "Hollywood ending" and kill the robot right before he reaches the city. If the robot dies too far out there is no tension and if he gets to the city, well, the city is destroyed.

So that was to be my idea, you must kill the baddies at the last second. You must deploy your units but if you deploy them too fast you a) run out of units (the do replenish over time) and b) the enemies die too far away and you don't get a good score.

While sketching, I got the idea that the baddies are bugs made of tar called "Tars", hence the name Tarnation. You are defending the garden's water supply from being polluted by the tars.

I thought it would be cool if the world was crayon style but the Tars are oil painted. This furthers the pollution aspect. Much of the art is place holder right now but I am updating it now that the core game system is complete.

I think it's on the way to being what I want. Everyone who plays it wants to play it again. Even my wife!