Starfield

When you deal with aspect ratios, there is always going to be the question of what you do with the border. This is a big issue as ROE was originally designed for a 4:3 monitor. As I espoused in the past, the game was 320x200 which is a 16:10 aspect ratio. Doing a little research, from 2003 to 2008 16:10 displays were super popular for computers. It seems they were just square enough for laptops, and desktop uses like the extra height. In 2008, the market abruptly shifted to 16:9 to match TVs. The idea is, just make one aspect ratio to keep the cost down. Android phones, however, still retain the 16:10 aspect ratio.

Now that the options menu is done, I need to add the Zoom/stretch modes. In Native and Zoom mode I'm going to have a border. I plan to fill this space with an animated starfield.

My rendered border tile

I found a real cool free program that generates starscapes. It actually generates a skybox. For now I'm just using a texture that I rendered and then edited in Gimp to make it tileable. However, on second thought, I may look into the skybox idea. The upshot is that the borders will slowly be moving. Not fast, but more of a graceful roll with a comet streaking every once in a while. It may even change directions. Right now I'm doing rendering experiments to see if it matches what I'm envisioning in my head. I may devote the weekend to this experiment.

I was able to remove two cards off the trello list into the done pile. I'm no longer adding things to the "Todo" side so the alpha is good and underway.

I want to have a beta by June.