Wow! It has been a while! 49 days since my last Osinia devlog. ouch! I am so sorry. Real life caught up with me at the end of summer and beginning of the school year. Priorities. Sometimes I hate them. Ah well.

I have trimmed down my expectations and added some new ones. So in short, the initial client is now developed in TwinBasic (basically the spiritual successor to Visual Basic 6. It works quite well. The client is in 64-bit and restricted to run in Windows 10 and higher. The restriction is mine. I figured I will support the current Windows OS plus the OS version before it. I am working on a Windows only client for now.

I DO have a C# version of the client but I am putting that to the side for now and concentrate on the TW (Twin Basic) version. This also means no extensive in-game UI (well, on the rendered map, that is). Not with the TW client unless something comes up on the TW side. The C# version works extensively in the game ui. So… someday, perhaps, I’ll get around to finishing the C# version or if TW catches up enough, I’ll just stick with TW.

So… server side is developed in C#, while the client side is now coded in TwinBasic. Took a few day but got Networking working good enough between the two. Also working extensively with DirectDraw7…. yes, technology from 24+ years ago. It works fine on Windows 10 and 11 and it is easy to use. Due to one of those hard knocks life lesson of.. work smarter, not harder, it is usually always good to work with easy to use tech…. as long as you know the underpinnings.

I am sticking with C# on the server side for two reasons. I use it extensively on my day job for back end development, processes, etc. I am intimately familiar with it. And I have quite a few tools and components I have gathered over the years that makes development quite smooth and quick. While it is possible to use TW (and VB6) for server side development…. that would be an insane decision. It does not do well for server side for many reasons.

There is one piece left that I need for completing the collection of components/wrappers for the TW client. And that is integration into Steam. This is a huge deal as I have no interest in storing any of your information, only your steam id. Once that information is completed…. oh… right, I still need some kind of audio for music + sfx. Hmmm…

So with this.. pivot, here are some of the additional costs:

$52/mo Twin Basic (Ultimate Edition) $200 Socket Tools 11 Subscription upgrade (I love this product and their support is top notch) $250 TW DirectDraw 7 integration

Plus:

??? for steamworks integration ??? for sound library (probably Bass or fmod)

Ugh, and I just remembered that I rewrote the server to simplify it immensely for now. I can always built it back up to the complex beast I had before. But for now.. I have to lower my scope and all that fun thing.

So that is my rant for this post.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I will be releasing the client in extremely small chunks at a time. Iterative development, I believe it is called. And I mean REAL BASIC to BETTER to OMG!

Until Steamworks integration is implemented, the client will prompt for an email address and password. The server will send out a verification code to confirm the email address is valid, then you are good to go. I will enforce 2FA via email from the get go, in order to log in. There is no excuse for any client/server software to NOT have it.

That account component will be replaced with steam once that is setup.

So the above will be the first build. The 2nd build will address simple character creation/deletion. Then the plans for the 3rd build is some kind of “in game” component to build off of.

Until steam integration (AND hopefully itch.io integration), the client will be downloadable off the www.osinia.com website (when ready), and I -hope- to have an auto-updater/patcher working well.

Anyways, see you next post!