Time for an update I feel!

Intel (and older GPU support)

I've added GPU support for people with Intel chips. I tested on my development rig's Intel 4000 and got a playable 25fps. If it chugs, try a lower resolution and reduce the texture settings in the Config file. When it comes to integrated graphics, the faster your RAM the better, so if your system has controls to safely increase your memory clock I would have a careful experiment with them.

Stability!

Another thing to note along with all the new features in 0.36 is the rather astonishing fact that it isn't randomly crashing out any more. It turned out to be a single value out of place in the sound middleware's editor. We've got builds running for hours at a time, which is a big milestone for us.

This leaves us with one last big crash bug, which is the infinite chicken breeding. I may leave it for now. There's nothing quite like bringing a state-of-the-art 16GB development machine to it's knees with the AI of half a billion belligerent galliformes.

Explay 2013

A little over a week ago I attended Explay 2013 and gave a talk on running a small indie business followed by a Q&A with fellow indie developers Cliff Harris and Jake Birkett. I think it may have been filmed, so I'll post it if I can get my grubby mitts on it. Here's a picture of part of the audience looking embarrassed at me for asking them to smile and wave:

PC Gamer

I always forget to post when we get in print magazines. We have a little preview in PC Gamer this month!

When I bought the magazine, the robotic till set off an alarm and a cashier had to ID me. I can only assume that the robots have deemed Maia to be highly offensive.

Minecon

Maia was also invited to show at Minecon! The first time we've shown the game on a conference floor. I sadly couldn’t make it myself due to Explay and needing to put a new build together, but sent Paul and Nick in my stead. We got some fantastic feedback on the game, made a lot of cool new friends and have received lots of excellent coverage from it!

Bug Hunt

I'm thinking of doing a live stream on Monday the 18th at 4pm onwards. The plan is to do some live development and some bug fixing in real time.

It's an ugly codebase; a buggy codebase.

If that gets boring I'll do a speed run of Theme Hospital!

0.37

Out on Friday hopefully. It will bring more animation and behaviour to the dogs, another deepening of the colonist AI and I'll hopefully be able to turn on the research system, so you can read about all the cool future-tech things we've studied.

Steam Early Access.

I'm still aiming for the December date. I have a horrendous amount of work to get done before we can go live. I'm also quite concerned that the contents of my desk's top are approaching maximum entropy...

Send help!