I realise it's been six months since my last post. In that time, the basement reno was finally completed, my daughter was born (actually a bit before the reno was done...) and I've run a half marathon. It's been busy.
Now that things are settling down again, I'm back to looking at my game, and I've come to a couple conclusions. First, and most importantly, the XNA Framework just isn't the way to go. I want to have the option of spreading this thing across multiple platforms (particularly tablets) and XNA doesn't offer that. So I'm now investigating alternatives, starting with Unity3d. If it offers what I need, I'll be back to square one as far as the graphics go. On the plus side, I was smart enough to make sure that the core game engine didn't rely on the graphics, so I'm not starting entirely from scratch. It'll still be a lot of rework but not as much as it might have been if I hadn't been as careful with my design.
The second conclusion I've drawn in reviewing my game is that the game isn't as fleshed out as I'd thought it was. I think reimplementing the graphics will give me a little time to ponder the way the game works, and the thought of implementing a touchscreen-based interface has given me the seeds of a few ideas that might help.
Two weeks from right now, I'll probably be in my hotel in Seattle getting ready to attend PAX. By the time PAX starts that Friday morning, I hope to have settled on a new game engine (I think Unity3D will work, but we'll have to see) and hopefully I'll already have the basics of the engine reimplemented and have something to play with.
