We've been busy...

Just in case you thought we had all died of the 'rona, you will be extra pleased to discover that we are very much alive and kicking, and we've been working hard all this time on Skirmish!

Apologies for the giant download that this post is, as animated gifs are pretty huge. If only Patreon wasn't so utterly archaic and horrible to use we'd have embedded video instead, but alas, it is truly stone-age, and this goes some way to explaining why we don't post much on Patreon, because it is an experience akin to slowly pulling your toenails off with a pair of pliers.

These days, all the cool kids hang out at our Discord. 

Discord's where we post everything on the day, and we get to actually talk to people, about anything and everything. Though is a quiet place of thoughtful reflection, pondering the imponderables, and gifs of exploding robots. So join up now!

Another interesting link which you might want to keep an eye on is our Trello board. That shows you what we're working on, what we're planning to work on, and what things we have done. It's our actual live Trello, which we actively use every day.

In case you're not cool enough to use Discord, you can of course rescue some shreds of dignity by claiming to use Twitter. Although this is maybe the internet equivalent of turning up to your kids' party and dad-dancing, it is still a great source of screaming hissy fits from the indie development community in general, and as an added bonus, Chaz posts gifs that we put on Discord up there too.

In case you were wondering we also have a Facebook page. But it is about only 1% as cool as Discord, maybe even less.

A Quick Summary Of Progress

Let's just imagine that the thought of hitting our Trello link terrifies you, perhaps bringing back awful memories of working on some back-end server team for a trendy fintech startup working with crypto... to avoid triggering, here's a quick summary of some of the cool things we've done lately:

• Proper explosions - these are now all proper, in various sizes for various things
• Shrapnel - bigger things blow up into all sorts of flaming chunks, occasionally leaving burning husks lying around the battlefield
• Crumbles - barricades now crumble away as they get shot at, and eventually shatter. Droids cower behind them, suitably difficult to hit, but really, you want to place turrets behind them.
• Implemented the Spreader Cannon. Boom-kerchick-boom-kerchick!
• A whole lot of major performance optimisations in the game and the engine, ensuring we hit that coveted 60fps even on crappier older hardware
• Tons and tons of different robots and turrets - 89 at the last count.

What's Next

• Getting the add-on utility buildings wired up to turrets - the scanners, reloaders, batteries, cooling towers and reactors you know and love from Revenge of the Titans all make a comeback here, to enhance your turret defence positions.
• Adding landmines in - that'll be fun :)
• Tangleweb, to thwart the progress of droids that have legs or wheels
• Figuring out how to use Decoys and Scarecrows. They had a clear purpose in Revenge of the Titans but it's less obvious what they're for in Skirmish, which is a fight to the death.
• Implementing Disruptor weaponry

I suppose we'll post another update when that lot's all working nicely. Stay tuned! Or more usefully, come and hang out in the Discord. 

p.s. I really couldn't stress this highly enough but everyone's contributions to our Patreon funding have made a massive difference, keeping Chaz funded enough to survive combined with our residual income from Steam which is unfortunately dwindling fast. Sadly I've still got to work in the oil industry and destroy the planet, unless we can somehow make about 10x the money from Patreon. You could help! Spread the word on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, everywhere you can. It'd be amazing to have a new influx of support.