So you may have noticed that a prototype hasn't been posted yet… Yeah, it turns out I did not make the arbitrary date I set for myself. I've been doing software engineering for over a decade, and I'm still awful at estimating things, although I think this has been one of my most accurate timeline estimates.

It was a pretty common mistake this time - I totally underestimated how long it would take to make a minimum viable train scheduler. It’s just about done now though, apart from the load/save logic. At the moment, the first train is scheduled for 00:02 in-game time with a starting load of 8 gold, 8 wood, and 4 pops. Trains then come every 90 in-game minutes with randomized cars and randomized prices - I’m definitely planning on improving the economy and giving it more logic, but this will at least give the game some playability.

There’s a couple minor bugfixes after this, but no new features, so it’s unlikely that there’ll be any further delays, although I definitely just jinxed myself. I’m estimating the prototype will be out by the 8th of March, in time for the next dev diary. Then I’ll finally be able get some feedback that isn’t from my 5 year old!