As most of the work I've done on Super Rising Thunder! lately has been on the engine rather than progressing the actual game itself, I'm forced to acknowledge that even this close to the end of the year, and even this close to my normal beta release schedule, that I have virtually nothing to show anyone. There's a new dungeon with no scripts in it yet, one story-based script, and the aforementioned engine work. That's it. That's all I've really accomplished this year. I hate that I've done so little, but in between work, other projects, devoting time to friends, and just life in general...it's forcing me to realize something, and that's that this hack will never be finished in a timely manner if I continue to work on it entirely on my own, doing every single thing by myself. I'm just not a speedy worker...
For this reason, do you guys think I should open a team thread? The main things that slow me down the most and are pretty much the biggest "barriers" to my work progress are mapping (dungeons and towns) and the accompanying puzzles. I'm not clever and it can be difficult to come up with a different puzzle gimmick every dungeon (especially ones that aren't made instantly easy with savestate scumming), so many heads may be better than one here, and mapping...well, my dislike of mapping is why this is a dungeon-based game in the first place, but even that hasn't lead to the desired result of faster progress. If I didn't have to worry about mapping or having to invent elaborate puzzles every time, I could work on progressing the game and playing to the parts of ROM hacking that I like the best - story, scripting, graphics and hex editing - and the things I need to do, like balancing the level curve and gameplay.
If you guys think I should, I'll make a team thread later with a lot more detail and information, but if you think I should stay a solo project, I'll try my best but can't make any speed promises. :( I just hate to disappoint everyone...