September 2019 - Week 1

As I've committed to delivering monthly builds I need the release process to be as simple as possible. I started looking into Docker to see if this was something I could manage myself on AWS. I learnt about Docker, useful for the cloud version of the game but not so much for building. I'm using Azure Pipelines as they are the only system with Xamarin.Mac support out of the box. After three days of investigation and script-fiddling I have both the Windows and Mac builds publishing to itch.io on a merge into the release branch and the unit tests running on every push to master. #devops

I've started attending game-developer meet-ups in Edinburgh and found a lively scene. Every Saturday there's a quiet get together in a video-game arcade cafe called Konbo and every other Tuesday a more social gathering in the cavernous pub ox184. Watching people play Dwerg Saga in person is the best way for me to see problems and get ideas for further development.

Today I've been fixing bugs and improving the UI based on feedback and observations from user-tests. For the next week I will be continuing with the AWS integration; switching to the REST API so it works on Mac, verifying clans are stored in the cloud and starting work on a dedicated server.

Here's a work-in-progress chef carving up some tasty bread I started a few weeks ago.

Happy mining!

Jock