Development Log Week 79

There is this weird effect that work progresses considerably faster when a deadline is looming on the horizon. As was the case this week with our demo at the Games/Bavaria Vernissage.

Games/Bavaria Vernissage

Just as last year, we presented Prosperous Universe at the Games/Bavaria Vernissage in Munich this week. It's a lovely small event at which local game developers present their projects and meet their audience in a very relaxed atmosphere. Consequently, we had some really nice talks with interested players and while it is somewhat hard to just "sit down and play" a game like PU, we got really good feedback.

Vernissage Polish

Development-wise we improved usability a bit to get ready for the Vernissage. Among other things, this involved immediately having the global chat open on the initial screen after a user has created a new company or to allow to toggle to fullscreen mode from within the UI (and without having to use browser controls/shortcuts).

Foreign Exchange

Also just in time for the Vernissage, we finished a few more visual parts of the foreign exchange system. One of these is the exchange rate matrix:

Animated price updates in the exchange rate matrix.

It's just that: A matrix that shows all exchange rates between all currencies. Every time a price changes, the respective value in the matrix is visually highlighted. It's a small detail, but it adds a lot the perceived level of activity of the game. Just from looking at it, you know how active the market is at any given point in time.