Completion of Taskforce today, but a frustrating day. Last night I thought that the work was done, and in the morning ran the program to watch it lock out alarmingly on start-up. This sent me into a panic, nothing seemed to be wrong. The core code worked fine yesterday and had barely changed.
I ran it again a few times, trying different error checks. Then, after 30 mins or so, everything 'magically' fixed itself. It appears to have been caused by Windows security or something like it... this is extremely annoying (partly because I have no idea what the problem was or is). It happened with Radioactive too, if I recall. It is increasingly common.
Yesterday, checking for program data in the user's Documents folder caused two security alerts, just loading my tiny data files that the program itself put there. I had to think of a way of storing the campaign progress that didn't involve 'Documents', but after a few hours and time-consuming experimentation I simply ditched the concept and unlocked all of the missions from the outset. So players from v1.06 will be able to see all of the game and play it in any order. Traditionally, the unlocking of new levels is a key part of a game, to unfold its progress like a story told, but I thought in this case it probably improves Taskforce anyway. The Achievements are a new goal, and getting stuck on a level is no fun. Also the original Taskforce game on Amiga allowed any mission to be chosen; the same was true of Hilt II, and my beloved Airbourne Ranger on the Commodore 64, so why not here.
One offshoot of the change is that the final 'game completed' Achievement will trigger when completing the last level, even if nothing else is completed; but I'll fix that next time. For now, the changes have been big enough and stressful enough. Each copy of the game is about 1Gb, and I need at least 5 copies to develop it: Steam Full Version, Steam Demo, My Full Version, Source Code Version, and the Steam Installed Copy. By far my biggest game is uncomfortably large to develop.
The Steam Achievements seem to work, so I'll leave things for now for fear of breaking something - that emotion sums up programming today. Before, things worked or not. Now so many things seem to be untestable and break (or fix) themselves without warning or explanation. I may add Steam Stats in future, but I'm unsure what. There are many I can add, from Games Played, to numbers of Shots Fired, or each type and quantity of Enemy Killed... but those wouldn't really add anything to the game. A good statistic might be a general performance measure, but that's hard here... shots fired compared with hits would be a pseudo-random measure of the unit skill... Turns to Complete each mission..? Well, I'll muse on it over the coming months/years/decades.
An odd thing about Windows is that running a program after 24-hours seems to 'settle it in' for security. I'll test the game again tomorrow and if it still works then I'll release the update. I'll update it again if it sells.
I had planned to update Gunstorm II next, but my nerves have been shot working on this, and the odds of that game selling are not good, though it would probably recover it's $100 fee eventually.
The world feels anxious everywhere. What was colloquially a 'job-for-life' is getting more and more rare. A job-for-life means a specialist doing a trained job, and it's been the staple, the core of civilisation since Jericho 12,000 years ago. Civilisation has supported people sufficiently to allow them to specialise, but now it seems that specialists are becoming rare. People can't make a living doing one job, but need to do several, and 're-train' often. Skills appear, and in a flash are outdated. People need to become their own managers. Deb and her colleagues are being trained to do management jobs (for no extra money, as you might expect), and managers fired or being trained to do every other job. The workman who fitted her bathroom floor the other day is not a carpet fitter, but a general odd-job-man, expected to know everything from gas fitting, to electrical work, to plumbing, to decoration; harder jobs and all at basic pay.
This feels unusual, maybe without historical precedent. We need a new philosophy for humanity that will help because there appears to be enough food and shelter for us all.
