Weekly Update - 1-8-2023 (v0.46 status update)

Hey everyone, time for another weekly update! Like I said last week, I'll be posting shorter updates on a weekly basis from now until the release of v0.46. After that I'll be going back to the biweekly updates, but for now since we missed the 2022 deadline, I want to at least update you all on our progress more often until we get this update out. Without further ado, here's how progress is going:

My main focus was the rework for the Options menu, which is by far the most complex menu in CPE. It's pretty much all I worked on, aside from adding in more animations for 360 aiming that Orexius finished. The good news is, the Options menu is nearly done now - there's still a few small functions to finish, and control configuration isn't back in yet, which is probably the most complex part, so I still have a bit to go. But, the options menu will definitely be done by the next weekly update. After that, there's a few small menus that still need to be done (like the Warp and CG menus), and the main menu as well, which is only half-finished - the intro graphics aren't in yet, and you can load a save but not start a new one yet, so all of that will need to be fixed. Luckily though, all of those smaller menus won't take long to get in working order, so I suspect the menu rework as a whole will be nearly finished by next week's update.

Aside from my work on the menus, Orex is still finishing up the last couple of animations needed for 360 aiming. I think there's only one or two left, so if it's not finished by next weekend, it'll be damn close to it at least. Then, all that's really left is to test the game as thoroughly as I can, make sure there are as few issues as possible. Since there are SO many massive changes with this update, be prepared for the likely possibility that v0.46 will have some bugs when it comes out - I'll be supporting the update with as many fixes as I can after it comes out, of course, but it might take a few days to iron out any issues! The update seems pretty stable in my testing, but if there's anything I've learned from developing a game on Patreon, it's that my testing alone can't possibly find everything.

One quick thing before I finish up the post; I was going to stream today, since these updates are shorter than my usual biweekly posts and don't take up too much of my work day, but I'm trying to fix my horrific sleeping schedule right now and I'm supremely exhausted. I was staying up until something like 6 in the morning most days, and waking up at 2 pm, and unfortunately my dumbass body doesn't let me push my schedule backwards - every time I tried to wake up and sleep earlier, I just ended up staying asleep til 2 pm anyway, even if it meant 12 straight hours of sleep. Historically, the only way for me to fix my sleeping schedule has been to stay up WAY longer and push it forward, and because of that I'm honestly just too tired and braindead to work today, so we'll be skipping the Sunday stream this week while I finish adjusting my schedule. With any luck I'll be rested tomorrow for the Monday stream, and streams should be happening a few hours earlier once that's said and done, so hopefully that should work better for most timezones!

Alright, that's it for me today. Thanks for reading, everyone, and I hope you're as excited for v0.46 as I am to release it! Here's to a glorious 2023, not only for CPE but for everyone reading this - let's make it a great year!