Year End Rally + Dev Day Diary

Getting a vacation at the end of a vacation is truly a twice blessed event. I love holidays with my family, but it's hard with all the running around and driving that becomes mandatory not to want to come home and crash. And so having a four day weekend for the new year's solidifies that as my favorite holiday of the year.

Yesterday I had nothing to do, full day off and got to do nothing but work on Defense Squad. I know, I'm sick. I get a day off and I work on something. I get it from my dad. But put this in perspective - half the time I'm working on this thing, I'm blowing something up. Very fun.

Any rate - it's starting to become a real game. It's fun to watch it gel, the combination of the base orientated management and the squad orientated play. Still, I'm concerned with the redudancy of the missions right now. Plus their difficulty level - the Mokara take out my best guys over half the time, and I probably have a better squad than I'm supposed to right now. The gameplay adjustments are getting a sort of one step forward two steps back feel now. The new lighting in the maps helps (pure dark was getting to be a bit much) as does improved cover. However, my mantra of "bots should be obedient if not smart" is slipping a bit. I lost several squadmates because they left their hold point to chase after an enemy. Some balance will help this out (commendations will increase a soldier's damage, weaponsmithing is going to give rise to more powerful weapons) - but it seems right now every encounter descends into chaos.

Still, sometimes chaos is fun. Like when I sent my two soldiers into an archway only to watch them get instantly ambushed and turned to skeletons. Or when walking along a low level getting literally jumped by three Stormhands above us. This kind of random encounter is probably going to be core, so it's nice to see it emerging.