Development

Finally, Immunocide is nearing completion. It looks like I'm going to meet my deadline of August 7th afterall. :D That's right:

Immunocide is going to be released on August 7th.

For the first time, I'm actually going to meet a projected release date! XD

Today's additions are as follows:

New Enemy Unit - Destoyer Nanomachine

New Enemy Unit - Carrier Nanomachine

New Enemy Unit - Seeker Nanomachine

Endomiasma's Shell graphic slightly tweaked.

I also spent a long time today trying to implement the "Defender Nanomachine". However, it not only turned out to be more trouble than it's worth, but it resulted in a number of level design problems that is already an issue in this game. To be specific, it causes a "tension downtime" if you play a certain way. To fix it needs a 5th recode of this unit, and it's not clear whether it'll effectively contribute to the gameplay. I decided to cancel this unit.

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Design

I'm considering whether I should recode the system for the minimap. Currently, it's taking a considerable amount of unnecessary resources, but since it can be turned off, recoding it may be equally unnecessary. Since it takes more time and effort, I'm leaning towards leaving it as it is.

I'm going to start on designing the actual levels in the game pretty soon. From comments on the demo (v.0.53), I have to be really careful about scaling difficulty. I'm thinking about adding a limited "hints" system that awards you with a level-specific hint each time you lose, but the story-based introduction to each level already has subtle hints in them.

There will probably be anywhere between 20 to 30 levels in the game. Each level takes anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes, which means that the entire game is about 3 hours long. Not bad. Of course, it can take up to 9 hours if you keep losing, but I hope to avoid that. :P