v0.50 Build Notes - THE ALPHA BUILD!

BUILD 50! Hard to imagine I've been doing regular builds of this game for over a year now.  

But here we are, and for the first time I think the game is in a true alpha state. There's a lot to fix, refine, expand on, and (probably) change, but all the key features are here. You can explore the worlds, you can play through the conflicts, you can improve your crew and you can keep score from game to game. I'm pretty pleased about that.

The biggest change is a rethink of the skills meter system. Over the last year I've gone from one meter, to multiple meters, to fewer meters and modifiers, and now back to one meter that can put on armor. The twist, such as it is, is that armor doesn't have to be "interceptors", it can be "range" or even a "mysterious" problem that's harder to solve. That gives a lot more flexibility and lets different crew members apply their skills to the same problem. I'm not sure this is the final skill system but it's a lot closer than it was. 

Beyond that, I've been making a host of tweaks and (hopefully) improvements:

• The scoring system now tracks and rewards various story and endgame effects.
• Buffs are now separated out so different cards can trigger the same buffs without stepping on each other's values.
• Gameplay options let you turn the tutorial and titles on and off.
• Some (most? surely not all) of the quirkier controller behaviors have been addressed.
• And of course the bug fixes. So, so many bugs. Hopefully there aren't too many new ones.

The development process shifts a bit now. I've been going heavy on the technical side of the game; now I have to go back to telling the story. The update cadence is going to slow down for the rest of the year -- I have a master's thesis that desperately needs to be done -- but I'm hoping to expand the game with a 4-8 mission campaign every couple of weeks. The Union of Worlds is about to get a lot more life in it, and I'm excited to finally be working on that. 

Comments and thoughts encouraged; this is the point where the game should to come alive, and it needs your feedback!

-- Chris