Making progress!

Lately I've been focusing a lot on the game menu functionality and I'm happy to say that I've passed a milestone over the weekend!  I've been working a lot on:

- Getting the character customization setup (trying to let players make their characters as unique as they want - mostly with color options, but character and hair types as well).

- The ability to select and play as those characters (for up to 4 players simultaneously).

- The ability for additional players to drop in/out anytime during the menu before joining a game.

- Selection of game types (Death Match, Survival, Team Tackle, Challenge Mode and Random, which randomly rotates between all of the other game types as you play).

- Online matchmaking based on player ratings (for the current game type).

- A pretty simple online game lobby to wait in while being matched up or waiting between matches. Once ready, launch the game!

Getting from the start of the game to an online lobby, while providing players with the major functions and features they need, was the milestone I was aiming to pass. Some of those steps that I had to take along the way may not sound like much, since so many games have that same functionality coming standard, but they actually take a good amount of work to implement from scratch, especially for a first timer like myself. Not all of it is perfect right now and it definitely isn't pretty looking yet, but it's functioning pretty well! There's a lot of placeholder art currently, so I'm hesitant to show off a lot at the moment, but once we get it touched up a little more, we'll definitely throw out some more screen shots and possibly video!

With progress on the menu being made, that means we're getting closer to having a testable PC Beta build for those of you interested! You'll be able to design your own unique characters and play cooperatively or competitively online or locally. I'm not sure yet how many game types will be available yet, but I'm shooting to have the first phase of the PC Beta build out by July 1st so keep watching this blog for further updates!