I did some research on multiplayer support and I discovered that XNA, the framework I'm using for the game, does not yet directly support it (XNA is only 1.0), but they intend to address it in the next release. Thus, multiplayer will be pushed to the end of my list of things to do. I hope 2.0 comes soon.
Since multiplayer is being put off, I began reading into AI last night. I have a book called Programming Game AI by Example, by Mat Buckland. It had good reviews and so far it's good. I'm totally new to AI, so I hope it's not too hard to pick up. I hope that the simplicity of Sever's design will make the AI easier to develop.
Earlier today, I added the ability to retract your own routes instead of severing. Retracting takes a while to complete, but you are able to salvage some of your people. However, if you need to get rid of it immediately, severing is the way to go, even though it means losing everyone in the route at the time. Sometimes sacrifices must be made.
After that, I cleaned up the code that handled the controls. I sorted them out and organized them to be much more flexible and useful.
After that, I was going to add the ability to have more than one player on the field, but I put it off because it's too tedious. I know exactly how to do it, but it means twenty minutes of running through my code and making a thousand tiny changes. Thus, I instead began the implementation of a main menu screen. At the moment, all I have done is the restructuring of the game loop, but I'll have the menu up and running in no time.
In between "coding sessions", I sometimes play some other indie games to better see how games work. My current favorites are Darwinia and Defcon by Introversion, and Bullet Candy by Charlie's Games. Darwinia won the McNally Grand Prize at the IGF in 2006, and it deserved it. Play it. Defcon is simple in a grand way, which is what inspired Sever. Bullet Candy is really fun if you play the Survival and Asteroid modes (play it with a gamepad).
clevceo
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