We Got Codes!
6/21/2019
We've been hard at work converting Jet Fighter Neon over to Xbox One. Its been a learning experience to say the least. So we're going to share with you some of the things we learned, as well as what's been done with the game so far. We found out early that just saving to the Xbox using the standard file save methods aren't reliable. Sure, the data can be saved using common file writing routines, but we aren't guaranteed that the file will be present later. The generally accepted method is to use Microsoft's connected storage. Unfortunately using connected storage requires that we use the Xbox Live library, and we were completely unable to get a test program working with that library. We don't want our inability to work with Xbox Live, to delay the release of Jet Fighter Neon. So, we've made a few changes to how the game works. Since we can't save to a file, we had to use and old technique that used to be used a lot on old Nintendo games. Instead of saving the game to disc, your game data is converted into a convenient(?) 12 character alpha-numeric code. This code stores all your progress in the game, so that later you just need to enter that code and continue from where you left off. We're aware that in the old games, there were people who would modify codes such as this in order to tweak their game save to suit thier desires. We thought of that, and have various algorithms in place to help deter that. Of course we're not going to disclose how those algorithms work, but suffice it to say that changing any value is not guaranteed to have any specific effect. During this conversion we initially started using a Unity Asset for handling screen management and animating our UI. Midway through this last month we realized that was presenting issues for us. The asset in question (we won't name names), had its UI inputs hard-coded to specific keyboard and joystick buttons. While that may have worked for most of its users, that presented a massive problem for us, as it wasn't working at all with ReWired, a Unity asset for handling user input. As a result, we've had to purchase a different asset to replace the broken asset in question. We're now using Canvas Flow, and are happy to announce that most of our game has been successfully converted over to the Canvas Flow way of life. We've still got a ways to go, but you can watch the progress on our new Sneaky Peeky page. Internally we use a GIT repository to store all our source code. Any time we commit code to the repository, our commit message is posted to the Sneaky Peeky page, so that you can see what we're working on. We hope this will help provide a little more transparency to our followers and fans, so that you all know what we are working on, or at least that we're working on something. Jet Fighter Neon is getting really close to being ready for the Xbox One, but we still have quite a ways to go. We're working on it as hard as we can, but remember that we do still have full-time day jobs, so we can't dedicate 8 hours a day to it. Man, I wish we could, but we still have to support our families. Anyways that's it until next month. Keep calm, and game on.