Ack! I took the time to post the BYOND version of this column on New Year's Eve and then forgot to do the Gamasutra version yesterday... On the bright side, I do this for free.
I've added and applied a new rule to filter the guild's game list. Games which lack both activity and help files are no longer welcome to stay. I figure they're just as inaccessible as games without servers or downloads. (Games in randomly active testing get some leeway.)
Tech Tree is a list of links about developer activity in BYOND Strategy, a guild run by unpaid volunteers on a game/development portal and software engine called BYOND. Those curious about notes or YouTube videos I've cut out can view the original version.
Devourer Of Souls' hybrid, Witches' Chess, has been updated. The forum reveals a fix for player names and a tweak to forbid people from playing against themselves on the same computer. Meanwhile, Kings might no longer be affected by the Flight spell and Devourer of Souls is investigating variant rule sets.
Tsfreaks has been busy. He stripped the multiplayer options out of Tower Defense: Clone Wars and the tourney options out of his version of Cathedral while modifying its interface. Meanwhile, he has been providing regular progress reports for MRTS involving various AI, gameplay and HUD changes.
Mechanos7's turn-based wargame, Riverside, has been updated and he was kind enough to point out the missing details in the comments of the BYOND column. Unit balance was affected with the focus being on the Red Dragon.
Meanwhile, Mechanos7's Empire Defense could be seeing new enemies (according to the Discuss tab on its hub page).
Acebloke is planning to update the interface of his economic/military simulation, Wargames. A picture of a draft is provided.
Readers may also wish to pay attention to his blog for the results of the AceMedalTable competition.
Apparently, Falacy's next version of his treasure defense game, Gold Guardians, isn't just a visual update. It's a complete remake. He's had it sitting on his hard drive for a few weeks while he waits for motivation to add the final touches.
Geldonyetich has been making progress on his persistent territorial dispute, Project Shock. I'm still not sure if it will fit in the guild, but he seems to be succeeding at making something playable. For the moment, he's concentrating on a static map, switching sector control, and hostile NPCs.
Besides the new filter, I didn't get any BYOND work done. I celebrated Christmas by watching various series on Hulu and Funimation like Gad Guard, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, American Gothic... BRB, someone's at the door.
