As it stands right now, Squishies is probably the closest to "complete" as I've gotten a game before. But without a proper endgame, it'd be very easy to burn out and give up, leaving another "could have been" project on the sidelines until the next time I end up rewriting the whole thing.
Even as early as a week ago, I was fairly sure I had a clear plan but now as I'm thinking it through, it turns out there's a fair bit I need to consider before it'd be classed as "ready". Loosely speaking:
- Visuals: there's still a fair bit of mess. We also don't have proper level backgrounds yet. Material selection is very limited, so I'd like to perhaps set up some kind of "material editor" as a sort of palette; I can add new materials, apply/update them across the board, done.
- Audio: We're still at the point now where we're basically firing a sound using spatial audio, but without much consideration for the mess it can be when lots going on at once.
- Multiplayer lobbies: Currently I have a single
devlobby. Perfect for testing, but in reality, we need the ability to create and join lobbies (public and private) - which then raises the question about whether enet/libjuice is fine, or whether the time would be better invested in something likeEpic Online ServicesorGameNetworkingSocketsso that I don't need to worry about the headache. - Bots: right now, they're great for testing. But to call them stupid/reckless would be an understatement. They essentially (try to) roam, fire on sight with little regard for what's in the way, self-damage, etc. I'd like to make them at least look like they're trying.
- Levels: currently, I'm working with only my test levels, all two of them...and these are small and not very well thought out. We'll need a decent selection of maybe 5-10 "maps" to start.
So all in all, it's a broad list but it's not like there's anything left that needs starting - everything is already at some level of completion, so it's now about focussing on the above things and trying hard not to get too distracted. Scope creep is a bitch.