Coming Next?

Starminer is now in feature freeze. This means that I’m not adding anything really new to the game. So from now on is just adding levels, fixing bugs, and adding some UI stuff.

Levels

As I mentioned in the previous post, I have 60 levels integrated. A few of those still need some balancing, specially in what pertains to the time you get to win an extra live on each level, and which power-ups to make available on some level. I’m now going integrate 40 more levels, and balance them. There’s also about 10 extra levels, which are still missing artwork, that I may decide to add, if there’s still time.

Bugs

There aren’t any known major bugs in the iOS version of the game. On Android, there’s an issue with display sizes, where in some devices the game will show up in a lower resolution than it could. On native targets, the menu buttons are currently broken, which was caused by a workaround for some oddities around how Android deals with touch/mouse events.

UI

Currently finishing the main menu, and options screen, then will have to make the help and credits screen. A bit more complex will be the level selector screen which I’m still thinking how it’s going to work. There’s still an issue with the Game Over screen where people have reported to sometimes accidentally start a new game, when they’re trying to restart on the same level. Still deciding if I’m going to remove that option, and force player to go back if they want to start from the beginning, or if I’ll just space those options a bit more.

Last, but not least, something that while I’m considering it a UI improvement, and not a feature (we’re in feature freeze, remember?), might be considered a feature, is the intro, when starting a new game. There’s a missing animation and voice recording.

Conclusion

I’m hoping to release the game in the App Store in April, but I’m aware that there’s a lot to do, and I only have very limited free time. After that I’ll try to fix the issues with Android, and release it in the Play Store. Meanwhile, I’m planning in putting the game on Steam Greenlight, and considering if it’s worth it to publish a flash version with a limited set of levels, as part of a promotional campaign.