Mandible Games

Quickly on the heels of that alpha test is 0.1.0 official release. Grab it (nowhere, sorry, removed!).

What's different? Not a lot. There's an installer, and that's it. I haven't gotten any bug reports, so I'm calling this a release.

But there's a new site feature – I've added a site forum for discussions. Take a look, start a thread, talk about D-Net. It's still under very heavy construction, so beware that the layout and look might change drastically as you browse. But it's officially open. As always, I'd love to hear any commentary you have about D-Net or the site, and if you can't find an appropriate thread to post it in, head for the forum.

This is probably not the most exciting post you've ever read, but there'll be more coming. Not to worry.

This has taken far longer than I hoped.

I've told you about the interface issues. Those were problematical. Once I finally figured out how gamepads should work, I had to figure out how keyboards should work, and that was another issue. Pretty much every interface element has had to be redesigned at least twice as I gradually understood what I needed better.

This behemoth is finally in a good state to be released.

Download Devastation Net, version 0.1.0 Release Candidate 2

(Note: download removed since it was technically not complying with some licenses.)

Now, just to warn you: this is not a final release. It's not even an alpha release. It's an alpha release candidate, and you'll notice it's Release Candidate 2. There's no installer either – you'll have to just decompress it to a directory yourself. (Installer is one of the next steps.)

I'm releasing this, probably a day or two at most before the actual alpha release, only to people who read this dev journal. I'm hoping people will download it and give it a try. If it crashes – and it's entirely possible it will – I'm hoping to fix problems before the official alpha release.

But this is, of sorts, a release. It's playable. There's AI you can play against, and there's enough support for multiplayer on a single computer (which, incidentally, I highly recommend.) The AI is terrible, and I know it's terrible, but it should at least give a sense for the game. Some of the interface is unfinished, still, but it's generally good enough to figure out what you should be doing.

Let me know in comments, or in emails, if it works or not (and, for that matter, how well it works.) Your feedback is very appreciated on this one.

As for why this has taken a while:

My unofficial goal is to post here weekly, at least. But, as always, problems crop up and things get delayed, and unexpected opportunities arise. In this case, the unexpected opportunity was this thing:

That's a small part of the Babbage Difference Engine. You might think it looks pretty cool, but you'd actually be wrong – it's far cooler than that. I had the opportunity to watch a good deal of the setup and tuning process, as well as stay out of the way of the people working on it, and honestly even staying out of their way was quite an honor. If you're in the Bay Area, I recommend coming and taking a look at it once it's officially open – although needless to say, the exhibit launch is likely to be packed beyond all comprehension.

Hopefully the delay is understandable.