After many months, many hours, many tears, and many supporters, it is my pleasure to present:



Membrane Massacre v2.0 (~15mb)





Five Long Months

I still find it hard to believe that it's been five months since I undertook the project that began as a two-week mini contest between me and splattergnome. I'm both amazed and disappointed that I've been on this game for so long. The months, melding in together with the endless barrage of school assignments, just rolled by. [smile]

The Last 5%

...is the longest and hardest. Getting an Installer program working properly took a quite a few hours longer than what I had anticipated. It being my first experience with an installer program (Nullsoft's), I expected it to be a simple "choose files and bam!" spiel. Turns out I actually had to write a script to all of the installation/uninstallation/license/startmenu-items work. It wasn't that bad overall, and I'll definitely use their stuff in the future. This also seems to mark the first game I've actually *needed* an installer for.

Next came the ReadMe. Looking over the dusty ReadMe I had for the first release of MM (back in November), I immediately knew it needed a make-over. I kept the basic stuff like weapon descriptions and 'contact info', but the rest was overhauled. I've always had a tough time trying to find things to say about my games inside the ReadMe, so it was definitely a struggle. I'm pretty happy with the end result though, so at the very least give it a look-through.

Finally, the last couple of days saw the implementation of ship-specific weapons -- or quirks, perhaps. Just little extras that each unlockable ship receives to add some more incentive to get far in Survival mode. [smile]



(Why freeze what you can FRY!?)


(Scatter missiles ahoy!)


(The fearsome wrath of the Indigo Avenger's Indigo Laser is as vengeful as it looks! [smile])



Feedback & Marketing Plans

Feedback is one of the main reasons why I do all of this. Hearing back from a player that they had a great time playing makes the whole process worth it. Even to make for a great gaming experience for just a few players would make the five months of sweat/tears/blood worth it.

Knowing that, how great would it be to multiply this by several magnitudes? My marketing and business experience are minimal, so the basic plan is to make a fairly attractive write-up for an forum-based advertisement, and start spreading it around the 'net. I hope to get an Image-of-the-Day on GD.NET, and on some reputable indie game development websites, now that MM is far more polished than before. I'm eager to see how many hands I get this game into!


Thanks!

Everyone who has been watching my progress of Membrane Massacre since November, or even just casual readers: thank you. Especially the kind people who have taken the time to write constructive and positive words about me and my projects. It's definitely what helps keep me going, and I likely would not have finished had I not of had you folks. And an additional thanks to Ravuya who is hosting MM right now until I get it up on the Showcase.


With all of that, enough said. Go and bash some bacteria, and let me know how it all turns out. [smile]