Government Shutdown

Hello everyone,

Time for another dev blog update, this time it's the U.S. Gov't Shutdown Edition! In case you aren't aware, the U.S. Government is currently in a shutdown. Technically, it's a partial shutdown, which means that people like myself still have to go to work (we just aren't getting paid). I think we haven't actually had an approved budget in years, it's just been a succession of continuing resolutions.

Anyway, this post isn't about politics, why there is a shutdown, whose fault it is, or anything like that. If you're wondering why I'm talking about it, it's because I'm a federal employee. This is a good thing, because there's no way I could survive with my AW income, even if I wasn't paying people to work on the game. I work in IT, and my job could be likened to putting out fires in a way. I'm something of a generalist, I maintain a bunch of different things, and fix things that break. It's basically my broad skill set that makes me valuable, rather than how much I do in any given day.

So some days I do have to 'put out fires' as it were. Usually it ends up being an external issue, but the other day I did have to do some hardware repairs. And... I end up with plenty of extra time to also write code for AW. Like a firefighter, there's some training and basic tasks to take care of on a shift, but I'm not busy unless there's a fire.

At least, until this shutdown...

As pervy and silly as I may be on a regular basis, I do still have a strong commitment to public service. So when the government shuts down, and huge swaths of employees go home, there is still work the needs to be done, especially when it comes to things like public safety and national defense. So, I've been busier than usual trying to hold things together. It's more work when none of the bureaucracy is working properly, and you're trying to handle things you normally have nothing to do with...

It's been a rough week in terms of development. I find it hard to write when there are constant distractions and things going on, so instead of pounding away at that inefficiently, I've been working on other areas where I can do more good. Fixes, and smaller tasks. Finances are now properly implemented in the game, for example. 

A few previews:

A whole suite of background images for some of the various early endings. 

Vehicle Management Window - literally

Because the map system calculates travel distance to determine travel time when driving around Muschi Valley, I thought it'd be neat to keep track of your vehicle's mileage. Just a minor detail that is kind-of neat. changing your vehicle, doing repairs and the like will happen later in development, they're fairly low priority.

I'm going to keep working toward the release of version 18. On the website I have the release date listed as "Jan 1*". I added the asterisk largely because I figured all sorts of things could happen... but I will still try to get this new version out on New Year Day. I'm not going to release if it isn't ready though, so I may push the date back to the 2nd.

I hope everyone has a great new years!

ThaumX