Bah! Am all poised to start releasing and sending emails and trying to make this thing go, when BAM, tool problems. In this case, with SecureSWF. Which worked fine about a month ago, but since updating to their most recent version, seems to be hanging when I try to use it on things.

And of course, because trouble never shows up alone, I’m wasted a couple of days before realizing that somehow their web support form wasn’t working, and I wasn’t actually in their support system yet. (Finally called them on the phone this morning, and the person was very nice, and it sounds like I have a support ticket now. I’ve heard good things about their customer support in general, so hopefully now that I’ve got their attention things will get resolved.)

Current issue aside, I’ve been fairly happy with the product so far. I confess, the personal/lite version is fairly limited though. If we can get this current problem sorted out, I am seriously considering upgrading to the standard or professional version, since I’m missing some of the finer control options that were present in the demo.

Anyway, delays, delays. Nothing to do for it now though, except wait while their programmers try to reproduce my problem.

Update: Big thank you to KindiSoft’s customer service!  They were extremely helpful, and have resolved the issue!  I’m back in business!

And… It’s over.

Whew.

The game that I have slaved over for several months is now off in the hands of the IGF, and I can finally think about something else.

I’m very happy with how it ended up! I didn’t finish everything I wanted – I still have at least 5-10 more ideas that would make great levels, that I never quite had time to do – but still, it’s a complete game experience, with at least several hours worth of content, and all-in-all, I’m pretty proud of it.

Now to take a few days off, before I start working on the actual public release!

Just a quick update. Things are going nicely, and while I’m a day or two behind where I had hoped to be right now, I’m still very happy with how things are turning out.

So happy, in fact, that here is a new screenshot! I’m particularly happy with how this bullet pattern turned out. I feel it works nicely, both as a pattern that is interesting to dodge, while still looking like a very iconic picture of the sun. Like most such things, it is even cooler looking in motion, but happily, even the picture is moderately sweet.

I’m hoping to put together a video at some point this or next week, which will mean that you, gentle reader, no longer have to make do with imperfect still images, but alas! That is yet in the future! And we must strive to live in the present!

That’s all for today.