This week took a different turn for me, as I finally got down to working on something I've been meaning to get to for a while. So that's one reason the only release this week was on Monday, and otherwise things have looked pretty quiet. But behind the scenes I've been putting in a lot.

Monday's release of 514.1548 is looking really good, except for a problem with alpha where I think I might have made some mistakes in the renderer when I was optimizing, and pulled out some premultiplying that appeared to be redundant. I've put off working on that bug because I've had other things at the forefront, but it's going to get taken care of before the next release, which I expect to put out early next week.

The big thing I've been working on is better Steam integration. I know this only impacts standalones and only those who use Steam, but most of the items on this list are things I needed to get done a long time ago. And it's proving not just to be an interesting challenge, but helping refocus how I look at things and showing me some things that could stand to be changed. A lot like the threading in particles, this project is stretching me in new ways and that can only benefit the engine.

The fundometer's looking a little light this month; I know winter is a bit sleepy for game development but you can do a lot to make sure things are ready for you when you're ready yourself by saving a few bucks of that sweet bottle return money and helping support BYOND. My thanks go out to those who've already been part of that, especially to one of the bigger donors this month. Don't forget, though, there's always Patreon or SubscribeStar if you'd rather do a small recurring thing.

Blue skies today, but of course it's cold. We're headed into the month where spring ostensibly begins, but realistically who even knows? Last year spring basically didn't happen at all, as if 2020 didn't take enough from us already. 2021 isn't shaping out much better so far, but let's think positive, even if a zoo day is still off the table for other reasons. Hopefully Texas will thaw out soon, too.