Got all of the pre-online-play work done. Stuff like setting/saving your online handle/alias and RGB colour for your stick fellow, ending the game if no players join into the next round, and everyone's favourite: ensuring that players spawn on a platform when a round begins. People don't seem to take kindly when they start a round falling into the firey depths of magma. :/
Draffurd, the enigmatic artist mastermind behind Magma Duel, has finished the new spritesheet for our bold stickman character. He looks absolutely bitchin', and I'm a very seldom user of such a word, proving my amazement. Here's a side-by-side view of the old compared to the new. I think the difference is very much akin to night and day:
Anybody who says they can't tell the difference (sarcasm or not) will be shot on sight. :P Programmer Art vs. Pixel Art IS night and day!
The server, tentatively named 'Magma Server' is now functional. It spews out nice little debug messages periodically to let me know just what's going on, and sports its nice TCP message queue that I struggled swiftly implemented.
On the client-side of things, you can now make use of the 'Play Online' button and connect to the Magma Server and exchange lobby chat messages with anybody else who happens to be connected. The listing of currently running games is also shown, and is refreshed periodically by the server. You can additionally join these games and chat in the game-lobby until the host launches the game. Anything after that is unimplemented. ;)
Lately progress has been in the networking department, and screenshots aren't too interesting there. Hopefully a release within the next week or so will quell your screenshot-anxiety.
Also, I feel lame for nitpicking about it, but would somebody mind rating me up 2 points? I've been sitting here at 1198 for about a week, and it's driving me nuts. ;) I just want to get a nice round number and call it a day. :P
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EDIT: Oh, and Happy 1000 Views! :D
Edit: Hey, it looks like someone else rated you at the same time I did, too!