Over the last week, I had a hard time focusing on much of anything. I severely fell off the wagon and back on my usual idle behaviors. It began with Killing Floor, moved through Revenge Of The Titans, and eventually lead to a heap of anime. The underlying cause of this diversion is unknown, but most probably has to do with harboring a seed of doubt towards the artistic merit of my project.

I was planning on putting a few finishing touches on my project today but, in some fairly auspicious timing, the game which inspired me to model it was vandalized. That's just disruptive enough as to take a fellow who was already having a hard time motivating himself and put him thoroughly off bothering to continue. At the very least, it's an opportune excuse.

So, instead, I'm just putting up what I have. As I still feel something is missing, I'm referring to it as "Mech Game Framework." After all, often a game is judged by perspective framed by its description, and I'd hate for any potential future employers to look at this and think I thought it was reflective of what I find a complete game to be.

My original goals were reasonably well met:

• DONE: The server will run through timed scenarios between 30-60 minutes, generating a new map between each scenario.
• NOT DONE: Players will have a save game file so they can take their progress between servers.
• DONE: The main focus of the gameplay will be digging, recovering ore, and returning it to your faction.
• NOT DONE: It will be a somewhat "action" game as other players may attempt to hinder you.
• DONE: Instead of choosing from different alien races with different stats, players will choose between different mecha chassis which have different customization capabilities.
• DONE: Instead of purchasing equipment on-map from an equipment vending machine, players will spend their earned credits in an off-map mecha customization screen.
• DONE: Instead of having one-use items that cost cash, the different parts you outfit your mecha in will have varying energy costs to use, and your mecha will perpetually regenerate energy.
• DONE: Moves are queued in advance. You can see your queued moves.
• NOT DONE: greater emphasis on passive defenses and other player-placed devices.
• DONE (but not elegantly): I will not have that really cool custom HUD Leftrey had, but the 4.0x skins should make up for that.
• NOT DONE: There will be an AI opponent available to entertain the player(s) for when there's not many opposing players online.

Perhaps I'll eventually come back to this and see it through to a more refined, feature-complete state. In the end, I can certainly say I got many things done, even if the overall product was not utterly complete.