Right, well, now then...Been alternately busy and lazy over the last few days, but now thanks to two all-night coding sessions (it's 4:30 i the morning right now) I can now import flexible scripts from the Tiles level map XML files and have the game obey them.  To test it out, I've added a new character to the Fort Spon level (Major Crut) who's not having a good day.  6 of his Angry Robots have risen up against their captors and are running rampage through the base.  You've got to get in there and shut 'em down with the old yoyo there.  First, you approach Crut and a message is displayed, giving you the outline of the mission and dangling a juicy $50 reward for helping out.  When the message is dismissed, the gate to the fort is raised and you can enter.  Killing the robots does indeed yeild the reward, with a congratulatory message.  This is pretty much the mission as it will end up, except that the robots need a little more "pumping up", and there will be an assortment of soldiers running around trying not to get fried.  Kill too many of them, and you end up in the cells back on Westlake Avenue, or maybe in the lockup on the base.  The mission engine is such an important part of this game and I've been fretting for a few days about the most efficient way to do it, what to implement, how to stop things overlapping, how to spread missions across levels and so on.  I've got a lot of that cracked now I think, but I'll be doing lots of testing as soon as the next mission is in place.  There're going to be about 10 or 11 missions, getting more and more challenging as you go around the city on the subway so they've all got to hang together.  Happily I've preplanned for savepoints so adding that in (next week I expect) shouldn't be too much agony, haha.

Tomorrow I'm going to start fleshing out a couple of other missions - one where you have to visit each subway station to retrieve a number of items for the subway system manager who's half man-half cockrell.  My good lady wife and graphic artist is really banging out some great characters - she did a hiphop gangster badger today which is going to really look great when there are 3 or 4 of them doing their thang in Estuary Park, which is the scene for the other mission - these guys have been tagging everywhere, and you've got to knock them out cold so the timid pengiun police can drag them off to the pen.  You'll also be cleaning the graffiti off with a special yoyo, and it also means I'll be working on the long-awaited spraycan jetpacks and graffiti layer overlays! 

I'm absolutely shattered so I'm going off to bed for a few hours, but tomorrow I'll do a little tidying and capture some video of the action so far.  There are a LOT of new characters to get animated and imported and have some life breathed in to them, including a new player character.  Pip pip!

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