So I’ve been a bit busy the last few days.  I’ve once again shrunk subscribers and monsters (or expanded the world, depending on your point of view), and I’ve increased the maximum number of entities allowed in a region.  The new maximum is 300 per region;  I find that 200 monsters and 100 players per region feels about right.. but this will be wired up to options in the “Design” area, so others can tune things differently.

Subscribers are now drawn using the vector sprites I created for “Ill-Timed Petition Damsel”, and the monsters are drawn using the Muncher sprite from “The Muncher’s Labyrinth”.  I know, I’m totally ripping off my own work.  It’s probably just temporary;  I wanted to see how things looked, animated.

So now if you really zoom in on the map screen, munchers actually chase meat (and petition damsels), instead of just having little geometric symbols slide along the ground.  I think it’s a big improvement.

I’ve also fixed a number of extra AI bugs on both the subscriber and the monster side.  Getting monsters and subscribers to actually approach each other to attack is surprisingly non-trivial.  But it’s pretty much working now.

Devs are also now in the world, though they aren’t really doing anything yet;  they’re just little arrows (like the player’s arrow cursor, only they don’t rotate and they’re fainter) that move around in the world.  Eventually, these will scurry around fulfilling the player’s build orders and assisting players in distress.  But that’s not been implemented yet.  Soon!

In other news, I’m pretty sure that next week I’ll be taking a break from development on MMORPG Tycoon, and doing another Game in a Week.  Need to clear my head a bit with a change of pace.  More on that as we get closer.