I’ve almost worked out all the issues related to local co-op! It’s been a huge undertaking, compared to other changes made to the game, but it feels AWESOME.

A friend of mine and I got together to play a few days ago to try it out, and record a video:

And in the few days since that video, many of the bugs have been fixed: the menus for equipping and upgrading your ship now work; you can now save and load games, binding controllers when you load; even minor issues like the weird color issue we mentioned in the video has been fixed!

The hard work is basically done; all that’s left is the details, and some thorough testing.

I hope to have a new version out in a week – possibly less!

local co-op is something I’d really like to code for Mysterious Space, but the game is so basic right now, that I’ve always felt I need to focus on making it deeper and more fun before implementing co-op.

but co-op came up again when talking to my co-worker Steve, who’s interested in coding boss AI for Mysterious Space. we were talking about the kind of data the AI would need, and then I recalled I was thinking of doing co-op.

“if I implement co-op, is that going to throw a wrench in your AI plans?”

Steve had no such worries. rather, we started talking about the possibilities: an item that switches the appearance of you and your buddy’s ship, so that the AI tries to use the tactics it’s learned for each person on the other… or an item that creates a hologram, so that there appear to be two of you… which is the real one??

as we talked about the possibilities, I recalled bits of code that are not prepared for co-op. for example, enemies always try to spawn off-screen, so the SpawnEnemy method takes a single camera as an argument… but that’s going to have to be updated to accept an array of cameras… also, when an enemy IS spawned, it’s passed a single Player object as its target… but enemies are going to need multiple targets… and are going to need to be able to switch between targets, hopefully without being taken advantage of by the players (for example, via “kiting”: a tactic where two (or more) players alternate in getting an enemy’s attention, preventing that enemy from ever getting close to either).

all of this has made me realize that local co-op is something I need to code sooner, rather than later. lots of the code is already making assumptions about the number of players (one)… the more of these sorts of assumptions get baked into the code, the harder it will be to change.

and so, for the next release, I will be implementing local co-op!

should be exciting! haha

ah, I don’t know where to begin! I thought I should get a website for Mysterious Space up and running, so… I did! this is it!

after getting a bunch of feedback from people on YouTube and Steam, I put together version 0.5.1, and posted it on a couple sites for sale (for $2.50). initially I’d been thinking “I’ll just have to wait to get greenlit on steam before I can release – that’s kind of sad,” but… why did I think that? I guess I was just so focused on Steam, I forgot about other options. why Steam? honestly, probably just because I happen to use it. but there are lots of other ways – some I’ve even used before, like itch.io – so… what was I thinking?!

I don’t know!

but anyway: 0.5.1 is now available! hurrah!

• IndieGameStand
• itch.io

there’s also a free demo available on itch.io.

I know I’ve said it a million times before, but I want to say it again: most of the money made from sales are going to be put back into the game. the first goals here are to get a chip musician, and then a pixel artist, to help make the game look and sound beautiful. after that… … I’ll worry about it when/if we get there!

links to any downloads will be on the Downloads page; there’s also a complete change log for every version available up on the Changelog page, in case you’re curious. it even includes the current changelog for the latest development version (currently 0.5.2). that page should always be up to date with the latest release changelog, but it could get a few days behind on the latest development changelog… I’ll try my best not to let that happen, though!

as to what I’m going to use this blog for, in general… I don’t quite know, yet! at the very least, I’ll embed any YouTube updates I do, but I’ll also try to talk about other stuff related to development… larger plans, weird code issues… whatever else comes to mind.

please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. I’ve already made several improvements and changes for Mysterious Space based on other people’s suggestions, and I’d love to do more of that. the best ideas come from multiple people getting together and talking!