Week 11
Moi!
The short week has passed and we still haven't received the necessary things we need for hosting the Platform & Game Server. While it's getting tiresome, we're not held back by this, and we continue to march on the route that is set by week 10's Plan B. Details follow.
Weekly Status
Game Client
- Finally added the extra UI block, a special column layout with support for elements with variable lengths and multiple columns. For now, it'll be used for the Codex content but it can be handy for later UI segments too.
TL;DR - Boring Development Details
This task has been quite tricky as I really wanted to build it on top of the underlying Unity UI framework classes but their documentation (particularly about their lifecycle and internal method calls) is practically non-existing - even though they've been available for like two years. It also seemed to me their abstract base class implementations are less than ideal for non-uniform sized, dynamically added content, especially if the primary axis is vertical. Without documentation on it's design, it sounds - at least to me - to be a situation where the base class isn't generic enough for it's purpose. I saw that other 3rd party implementations probably had similar issues, as they largely ignored the abstracted patterns for calculating and updating the inner layout.
I still ended up subclassing it and will use it's virtual methods to create my specialized class, but without the docs or knowing the clear intentions of the Unity devs, I can only hope I've made the right choice. And this situation is everything but professional.
- Creator scene is one big step closer to be finalized and sealed. I'm probably over-complicating this particular scene but since there are quite a few settings for your shield, I want to avoid the UI feeling crowded at all costs while at the same time, I want to maintain easy discoverability for the settings. It should also be extensible for later features. So I want to do it not only on a way it works, but on a way that we may never have to put a lot of effort into this scene again.
- Preparing to move onto the next chapter, I've blown the dust off the map code to test a few initial things for Sándor. He is done with everything for the current release, so we set him up for the next big step - working on the actual Game Map and it's overview mode.
- Updated codebase to latest Unity (5.6) - then fixed the layout codes it broke everywhere but the login screen (that's for next week). Unfortunately, the Unity Editor also seems less stable since the update.
A couple new elements on the Coat of Arms creator scene. Still work in progress.
Platform & Game Server
Instait's management team are pleased with the cooperation so far and we decided to bring in another developer - though only for a limited time - for the server developments. Unfortunately, it came when we're already on Plan B (best case, we would already have had our servers by this time so the additional guy could do more serious stuff), but still, his presence lets us to do a couple things in parallel. So - applause! - Gabor, the new guy on our project, joined the team on Tuesday and Steve handed some of his tasks over to him.
- Steve was mostly working on the Player Module - website integration using the cloned site. It's still a work-in-progress.
- He also brought a new patch to the Platform & Game Server, mostly related to user data validations.
- Gabor spent most of his time getting familiar with the basics of our project and the server side particularly. He also took over the built-in bug reporting feature and made some additonal work on it.
Website
- No updates here.
Some small changes on the stylized overview mode. It's also proof that the underlying map code is still working!
Next Step
- We'll continue running Plan B until we finally have the hosting details, as already outlined on Week 10.
- We're preparing an offline Creator release for Vanguards around the end of the week, or worst case, the first half of next week. If you're a Vanguard, please visit the Vanguard Barracks section of the Meeting Hall for more details. :)
Let's see what we can do in the next some days. See you in about a week!
