Tau Station Status Report: May

May is almost over and this month brought us many ups and downs… but only regarding the temperatures here in Western Europe. Our international development team is “weather-proof” and is moving steadily forward to Closed Alpha—regardless of the circumstances beyond our windows. This month we were also able to set up important internal processes and tools which will help us to work more efficiently in the weeks to come. Read on below our status report to see what our team has accomplished for Tau Station in the last weeks.

May work Updates

Gameplay

  • Implemented Mission item types
  • Implemented Medical items
  • Implemented equip/unequip/swap functions for items in inventory
  • Finished  work on Shuttle schedules
  • Implemented chat function which simulates the time a radio signal needs to travel from station to station
  • Our combat and weapon system is now subject to a thorough examination regarding tiers, economy, and balancing
  • VIP visa can be renewed in the government center

UI, Art and frontend

  • Style Guide, which is a living document where everything is defined, down to the last checkbox or radio button, including colors, frames, fonts, etc
  • Improve A11y documentation
  • Chat UI
  • Started work on 3D star map
  • Continued work on the inventory
  • Art and Design for the port, the docks, local and international shuttles
  • Work on the main navigation
  • Improvement of the Brig and Sick Bay design
  • And so much more art: medics, cameras, shuttles, etc

Backend

  • Payment system for the game has been set up for testing purposes
  • Mission builder has been improved to provide more flexibility to the Narrative Designers
  • AJAX calls  and API route implementation for inventory and employment center
  • Work on scalability

 

Narrative

  • Work has been done to ensure cohesion with the main story and the universe as a whole.
  • Each station in the game has the ownership of one Narrative Designer to guarantee that all parts fit together
  • 5 new missions have been green lighted by our “Keeper of the Vision” and make now their way into the mission builder

 

Other

  • The Narrative Team was reinforced: a new Narrative Designer has joined us – hooray!