Swordoku Lives! Now With Backups and a Slightly Broken Developer.

We've been pretty quiet this week. There's been a lot going on, including an elbow that apparently looked at the project crash and thought, “I can make this week worse.”

Septic bursitis.  Just imagine not being able to bend your arm, and it hit as quick as the crash. 8pm all was good, by midnight my elbow was the size of my knee and couldn't be bent.  That was fun. 

NOT.

But there is considerably better news on the game side: Swordoku survived. Recovery went well, and we lost almost nothing that couldn't be reapplied.

After the initial horror of finding empty files everywhere, that's a much nicer sentence to be able to write.

Back from the grave, with a few precautions

Work is moving forward again, and the recovery has also prompted some changes to how that work is protected.

Nightly NAS backups are now configured, and commits are being pushed automatically to a private repository.

Yes, a repository. You may remember my enthusiasm for that subject in the last update.

Apparently discovering that your backup plan has been running primarily on optimism can change your priorities.

More reasons to chase that match

Since getting Swordoku back on its feet, a lot of the work has been about making the game clearer, more rewarding, and more satisfying to look at.

The board rewards have expanded to include equipment chests, coins, Essence, and healing potions. That gives you more reasons to pursue particular matches instead of only clearing whatever happens to be convenient.

Do you go for the equipment? Pick up some currency? Chase the healing potion? Suddenly a perfectly ordinary-looking piece has several jobs competing for its attention.

Meanwhile, I'm moving toward a tilted board and refining the puzzle window to give the gameplay more depth and a stronger visual identity. The goal is to make the puzzle feel more at home in its adventure, rather than something that just happens to be sitting in front of it.

A HUD that knows it's on a phone

The combat HUD has had another round of rearranging, with phone screens firmly in mind. Progression indicators have been improved, and there's now a visual momentum counter to make that information easier to follow. Speaking of momentum, the more matches you make in a row? The higher the damage.. Now with nifty orange diamonds! Probably getting refined again with the new UI going into place one screen at a time.

There's a lot the game needs to tell you. Ideally, it should manage that without making you stop playing to conduct a small investigation.

That same push for clarity is spreading through the rest of the interface. Sanctuary, Inventory, Blacksmith, Merchant, and Shrine are transitioning toward a cohesive new fantasy style.

Getting all those screens to feel like they belong to the same game is rather helpful. Especially when I keep rebuilding bits of that game.

Know what you're buying, equipping, and upgrading

Equipment management is getting clearer stat comparisons, dual-wield previews, and upgrade information. Merchant buyback has also been added. On the other hand, that merchant is greedy and can charge a markup to get your stuff back!

Because “was that actually better?” is a question I'd prefer the interface to answer before you've finished swapping everything around.

The Shrine is getting a stronger presentation too, making permanent upgrade paths, their requirements, and their benefits easier to understand. Spending your hard-earned Essence should involve a decision, not deciphering what a button might do.

The real boss fight: getting a Play account

On the account side, Google Play sign-in is working. Purchase restoration is planned, but isn't something I'm calling finished yet.

Getting to that fairly ordinary sentence was a whole other adventure.

Our old Google Play developer account had been disabled. We hadn't published anything there in years, and when I went back to sort it out, I discovered that closed meant closed. Getting that account back wasn't an option.

Fine. New account, new email. Except wait! I already had another email address ready to use. Look at me, accidentally prepared for something.

We hadn't used that one in a few years either.

Google couldn't verify it, and getting it recognised involved logging into it for seven consecutive days. Apparently I'd unlocked the daily login reward system before I'd even uploaded the game.

Then came the business registration. SquigglyFrog Studios is now a DBA of Willow Peak Digital LLC, so we needed to register as a business. D-U-N-S numbers, paperwork uploads, and all the associated fun followed.

All of this to get an account for a game that's intended to be free, with a few optional in-app purchases.

I can build a dungeon full of monsters, but apparently the entrance to the store is guarded by an administrative hydra.

I'm remembering why I moved toward private marketplaces on more niche devices. Less paperwork. Usually the monsters stayed inside the game.

More sparkle, with an escape hatch

A lot of visual effects have made their way into the game as well. Which is lovely, right up until the device running them starts expressing an opinion.

There's now a monitoring script working in the background that can automatically turn down some effects, lights, and other visual elements when performance starts struggling.

The idea is to find a sensible balance between presentation and performance. I want the effects to make battles look better, not turn them into a slideshow with excellent lighting.

So that's where things stand: recovered, moving forward, and getting a substantial round of refinements across the game.

Swordoku is back from the grave. I'm hoping my elbow will stop trying to book the neighbouring plot.