Hello everyone! A short but promising update here. Since the last update I haven’t been able to really spend any more time bug-fixing, aside from a brief investigation of the memory leak issue which might prove far easier to resolve than I feared. Teaching has begun again and online teaching is unusually demanding (just browse the academic portions of Twitter for evidence of this!), while I’ve also been getting back to speed on my research after the concussive interruption suffered in the last twelve months. On this front matters continue to improve, and although I’m not back to a normal amount of screen work yet, I’m a good 80%, which is sufficient for my job, a bit of coding, a bit of leisure, etc. As mentioned before, it’s clear the physical part has long-since resolved, but this has left a deep psychological impact which is taking far longer to heal (as these things do).
But: the important part of this blog post is that a week off teaching is coming up, and my goal in that week is get URR 0.8 out. I cannot ultimately promise that this will happen – I simply don’t know how significant the last two bugs (memory leakage and Windows 10 issues) will be. Perhaps they will be trivial (I sure hope so); perhaps they will be wretchedly difficult. We’ll have to see. The week in question is the University of Sydney’s mid-semester break, as shown here on the term calendar:
Although my day job will still be my priority in the daytime, because I’m not on leave – I’m just taking a week from teaching as part of the mid-semester break – my head will be a lot clearer, and my evenings much freer. My goal is therefore to get a couple of weeks ahead of my teaching content delivery in the next fortnight (I’m on track to do this), and to finish off and submit to journals two papers I have 90% finished (I’m on track to do this as well), and thus have the evenings and the weekends free in this 11-day period to really focus back on URR. What the previous week really showed is how essential carving out time is at this point in the project. It’s no longer something I can do a bit of here, a bit of there – it’s something that needs concentrated work in a finite period. After a good year or two of being largely unable to clear out any of the 30-ish bugs remaining, a single week of focused work took that 30 down to a mere 2. So this forthcoming week, at the start of October, will be the next such period. I’m excited!
Therefore: at best, we will have a release at the end of the week (or perhaps a few days after). At worst you will still get a big update detailing all my efforts to fix these final two bugs and where things now stand. Sadly these are major bugs, otherwise I would probably just ignore them in the interests of getting the release out – but if nobody using the major OS can play it, and if people without a vast amount of RAM can play it, then sadly it’s just not functional! But either way, the next week of focused URR work will be the 3rd to the 11th of October (i.e. including the weekends on either side). I’m really excited to give myself the time to delve back in, and see what can be done. I’ll see you all then!
Might have to get some champagne to pop for the occasion, we’re all on the edges of our seats!
As am I! I’ve finished my teaching for this week now, so beginning to clear out a handful of other tasks before the weekend starts…
Wow, I was just thinking about this game today so it’s great to see an update! Looking forward to seeing how it goes. When everything is sorted and 0.8 releases will there be a patch notes to sift through since I quite enjoy doing that. Hope it all goes well!
Thanks so much for the comment DL! Oh gosh, yes, patch notes… it has been so long it almost feels like a different game. I’ll have to get working on those…!
great news!
Thanks!
Thanks for the heads up Mark! Looking forward to spending hours exploring the new worlds that URR is about to bring to life! Cheers!
By the way, the week mentioned will be right after my next college tests which are coming up, and also right after the arrival of my new computer (since mine has been having terrible HD problems for a while, and being a laptop, I feel like fixing it would be more of a hassle than upgrading right now). Looking promising!
Thanks Anderson! Because I’ve been so close to it, because it’s just “here” on my laptop, I forget how much has actually changed since the last version. NPCs, conversations, clothes, a million smaller things… there’s definitely a ton to explore in there. And that’s awesome, this could be an auspicious week! Very good luck with the tests, also :).
Wow! Amazing work friend. And these dates in October coincide with my 30th birthday, now that would be an exquisite gift ??
It will feel so great for you to have a bit of closure on this massive project and you will really have something to celebrate in this true piece of art that you have created.
All the best wishes for you in the meantime ?
Hahaha, thanks Uggo, and that IS good timing…! Yeah, closure is absolutely what I need now. Is there more URR to come? I honestly haven’t a clue; but it’s time to bring 0.8 to a close, and one I can be happy with.
Congrats. It is amazing how you managed to overcome this hard times for you. The other packages you will surpass aswell. Don’t worry!
Thank you Adrian! 🙂
Thank goodness urr 0.8 is coming alive! Almost feels like centuries when waiting >v<
I know, right?! Update coming today, in fact…!
Man, I’m excited about this! I haven’t played the game yet but I’ve been reading about it for a few years now. Can’t wait to try it out!
Thanks Diach0! 🙂