Happy new year!

I am back from Tasmania. Changes have gone live and I have had a chance to start work on some new games.

Tasmania was great. It is one of the prettiest places in the world in my opinion. Also the chance to escape the sub-tropical summer of Brisbane for winds straight off Antarctica cannot be dismissed lightly. The lack of internet where we were staying was equal parts curse and blessing. It forced me to actually relax. I even went fishing and, with a piece of line I found lying on the jetty, caught a mackerel.

The changes to the site that have gone live are small. I changed the game interfaces so the last couple of lines in the chat are always visible. This should mean that new chat massages are always visible without having to specifically check for them.

I also added a new option to campaign setup so starting pilots can have XP and rank. This way pilots can start with the ability to tail enemies, rather than having to build up to that rank over a couple of games. This only effects each player’s starting pilot. Replacement pilots’ XP is then dictated by the replacement pilot XP settings (go figure) .

I also added some more colour schemes for existing planes and traced most of the remaining planes. The new planes still need colour schemes, which is the time consuming part.

Finally I managed to catch up with an old friend to discuss translating a game we came up with years ago on to the Hexcell platform. It was very productive. My friend promised to do graphics for the new game and I have started the coding.

And now I am back to work and a regular schedule for the new year. I hope you all had a good holiday season. Now game on!