Just a quick clarification: what I had been previously calling version 0.8.7 has ballooned into quite a big change, and so I’m now calling it 0.9.0. Really, I should have done this from the start: the civilizations and new sector map are conceptually large… why I didn’t realize this at the start, I’m not sure 😛

But anyway, that’s whatever. Who cares.

What I REALLY want to talk about is my current progress. I did not release at the end of January since the game was not in a playable state at that time.

It’s been two weeks, and the game STILL isn’t ready for release, I’m pretty confident it will be ready at the end of THIS month, so look forward to a release then 🙂

There’s not a lot to say about the progress these last two weeks. For one, my full-time job was super-busy last week. A few co-workers came in from out of town for a big meeting (the development team, which I’m a part of, works remotely). Besides the long days that week, several days were made even longer by after-work dinners and socializing. This is all to say that zero Mysterious Space work was done during that week, or indeed zero ANYTHING ELSE 😛 It was a stressful, but fun week – no regrets! 🙂

It also seems that no matter what month, week, or day, there’s always some other side-project I’m working on. An educational game… a board game… a game jam… I’m not going to apologize for these stealing my time, anymore 😛 Even though they’re unrelated to Mysterious Space, they’re all opportunities for me to do something new, and learn something more. Hopefully, I’m learning a little something from each one, leveling up my real-life skills, getting better at everything I do, including Mysterious Space.

THAT BEING SAID: I’d like to talk about my most-recent side-project, since it is Mysterious Space-related, although not in a way you’d probably expect: I have been planning and writing a story which takes place in the Mysterious Space setting. I would not consider myself a skilled writer, but it is always something I’ve enjoyed doing from time to time, and as I sat down to plan I realized that there are some writing-related tips and tricks that I’ve learned from studying game design (a lot of game design pulls from other media, anyway, including movies and books).

How far will I take this writing project? If I had to guess, I’d say one in every 10 to 20 of my side-projects turn into anything worth sharing, so… we’ll see how this one goes! 😛 But even if it’s something I never finish, I’m sure it will inspire changes to Mysterious Space in the future 🙂

Sorry again about missing last month’s release, but I hope you’ll look forward to this month’s. I’ll try to post a game-play/update video in the coming week, as well, to show you guys some of the new content!

Thanks for reading, and thanks for playing Mysterious Space! 🙂