This week I spent a fair amount of time working to complete the core generator for the game. So what does that look like?

You may recall in earlier screenshots the ‘Hackers’ tab. Well, the ‘Machines’ and ‘Networks’ tabs are now also complete and integrated into the equations for calculating how much ‘Dark Coin’ you make on every game tick.

On the surface, this might not seem like a big deal, but there are two reasons this is an important milestone.

1. Dark coin generation is quicker.

This is important for the user to feel the sense of progression in the game, a key factor in any idle game I have played is giving the user the sense that spending time on the game pays off. In this case, the most obvious attractive upgrade is speeding up the generators in the game. i.e. Hackers, Machines, Networks.

This will generate Dark coins faster and enable more upgrades. Plus some features that I have yet to disclose to you all. Let’s just say that you are generating Dark coins for more reasons than just saying you have them. They enable game progression based on your decisions and play style.

2. I can now focus on the next milestone, saving the game state.

As I play test my game, one thing is now clear. The time has come to save the game state.

It is no longer a case of generating a few hackers to get far enough for the generator upgrade system to be tested. After all, if you take a look at the screenshots you will see that the later options to buy network items require some pretty heavy commitments by way of quantities.

So, as I play these early builds on my machines, I now need to have the ability to store that state so I do not have to start over with every new build.

This presents some interesting challenges.

I have toyed with the idea of using the same system that I created for my early ‘Cash on Tap’ game, but I think I need something heavier to make future changes easier along with version migration. I’ll be experimenting to see what I feel works best.

One thing that always matters, and my advice to you, is to encrypt and save data. Otherwise, people will hack the files to cheat. Now, this might not be a big deal for a solo game, but think about that in a multi-player game!

More on this in the future for sure.

Upgrades via Dark Web Coins

I think this screenshot will answer some questions and give insight into why generating those dark web coins is so important.

Yep, upgrades are in the works.