A strange night of feeling ill. I awoke feverish and shivery after a strange dream of a trip on board Concorde. The pilot allowed me to sit in the cockpit and I compared the aircraft to a jet fighter. Later I sat next to a quiet, dark-haired woman who seemed lost or unable to reach her destination. She said she was from Yeathered, which I imagined was in Lancashire or Yorkshire. I said that she could stay at my house for the night. I then awoke feeling ill and remained so for the rest of the uncomfortable night, although could identify no specific pain. Actually it feels like my recent grogginess and bad stomach were some small infection. This could be simply cabin fever though, or Taskforce fever.
The game is mostly complete. I wanted to set up the demo version on Steam and was thwarted by the stupid and ridiculous system of sharing files in a demo and full version using separate Steam Depots. This is complex and impossible to test without a second computer, so I ditched the idea and created two separate versions which can install over each other in any order and have both working.
I play tested a mission called Clone Alone - actually one of the nicest looking of the new levels, very industrial and full of hazards and distant windows. I discovered more 'stuck stairs'. The stairs are a problem, they need space overhead to walk off, and space at the end to walk over. It's all too easy to miss this and several levels had these stairs. I spent an hour programming a special tester to check every map for these stairs and found some more in another level, but that is (I now know) the last of them. Everything seems complete. The manual is having a final look over by Deb and it is all set for publication.
More general playtesting is needed. No matter how complete I think the game is I find new little problems on almost every play. If I can play for a few days without any, then it is done.
Another job for today was scheduling the release of the remastered Animalia. That will come out at the end of June to a silent reception like most of my music. The quality of this output is the important thing to me. At the lowest bar, all I have to do is create something better than Tangerine Dream (easy, it seemed that they pressed any old thing and called it finished music). Of course, the highest bar is it must be the best I can do. Hopefully it always is, although there is always some sort of limit or restriction; as with this Taskforce music. Animalia 2020 will be released on June 26th.
