2020 Roadmap

[Simon]

2017 -- 2018 -- 2020 -- 2022



For the second half of 2020, I'm planning:

• Undo in the editor. I've poured serious effort into undo, but it's not finished. Undo must become a non-buggy releaseable feature. At first, only tile additions/deletions will be undoable. More actions will follow to become undoable. Probably some minor actions won't yet be undoable by end of 2019. We'll see.
  
• Introduce an end-of-level screen that previews the next level. Maybe offer two levels: The next level, and the next unsolved level.
  
• Replay tweaker: Add insert mode
  
• Probably no physics change, no introduction of neutral lixes yet, ... But I should propose a battle plan for such breaking changes. Physics have subtle bugs, and I still haven't merged fixes that have been cooking since summer 2017.
  

-- Simon

[mobius]

wasn't there something that always comes up during multiplayer sessions about when a level ends the screen goes away or something happens and you can't see who won or something of that nature?

Also has quitting/leaving server too easily been fixed?

[Simon]

• #360: Server should broadcast nuke on player leave: Handily, this can be a server-side change, not a physics change.
  
• #242: Show ScoreBoard in lobby (replaces end-of-game box): I want to display the colorful bars (that normally appear when you mouse over the bar graph during multiplayer) also in the Lobby.
  

These two, I assume?

The lobby needs a place for the colorful bars after the game. Unclear where to sacrifice screen space. This is the main design problem. Otherwise, these two are very much doable.

-- Simon

[Simon]

Undo in the level editor is coming together slowly but steadily, and will certainly be released in December 2020. Undo is special in that the feature must be complete to be released, it can't be releasesd until every single possible action is undoable.

Singleplayer end-of-level screen, I will start the work after undo. It's possible to finish this before end of 2020, I'll have to see. This screen needn't be complete to be releasable, e.g., the planned next-level button isn't an absolute requirement for its very first release.

The other items are secondary, I'll see how much I get around to them.

-- Simon

[Simon]

Happy New Year.

Undo is completely finished and can be crossed off the roadmap. If issues come up, tell me, we can work on those.

Liebatron made his Chicago train tileset, I promised to look over the trap design, tile naming, etc., and I'll focus on that these 1-2 weeks. There are still ambitious coding projects around the corner, but Liebatron's set, I promised to look over it, and haven't done anything over the holidays yet. This must come first.

Then I'll look into (server sends nuke on player leave) because mobius prodded me to do that. It's good if people prod me to prioritize certain bugs, I want to reward that.

Then, the next big feature in Lix is better caching of levels (or at least their metadata) and trophies (= results from playing levels). This leads to fun benefits:

• End-of-level dialog that can quickly determine the next level, and/or the next unsolved level, and preview them. You can then immediately play either, or return to the level browser.
• Solving statistics for entire directories when you browse ranks/packs in the level browser, e.g., "lemforum: 173/240 solved".
• No re-indexing every time you hit Search in the level browser. Re-indexing costs 10 seconds on Windows for ~1400 levels.

I'll see how my mood is for shoving the other 2020 roadmap item, insert in the replay tweaker, in between. If you want stuff done, tell me. Otherwise, I have no idea which bugs are most important and I'll work on what bothers myself most.

-- Simon

[Liebatron]

Liebatron made his Chicago train tileset, I promised to look over the trap design, tile naming, etc., and I'll focus on that these 1-2 weeks. There are still ambitious coding projects around the corner, but Liebatron's set, I promised to look over it, and haven't done anything over the holidays yet. This must come first.

I'll set a reminder to myself to check out the forum at least once a week for the next couple weeks then! Or heck, I might just set a weekly reminder and leave it on indefinitely. This thread aside, I do want to check in here more often just in general too.

[Liebatron]

Derp. My mistake! Good lord, this was a whole year ago?

[Simon]

Yep >_>

In 2021, I made the end-of-level screen with all bells and whistles. Besides that, a handfull of small bugs.

I haven't looked into #360 Server should broadcast nuke on player leave yet.

It's still conceivable to #411 Build a better trap format for when I finally can have physics changes again.

-- Simon