Update 18: Alpha 1.5 - Finally Moving...

I finally have my characters moving. If you know me and have talked to me about this project, this has been a significant barrier for the duration of the project to date. I've tried multiple path finding algorithms and methods to move my characters, mostly with pretty horrific (lack of) results.

Today that changed. 

It's simple, but it involves two pretty important mechanics. 

1. A simple tile based system that highlights possible moves. This creates the 'sectors' my game needs, but still gives me the flexibility to not be tied to these tiles. 
2. The ability for me to click on the highlighted tile and actually move the current character to that position.

The test level below shows both mechanics at work, but in the final game, the red grid will not be visible.

You can download the Alpha 1.5 version here: http://www.samsmithnz.com/content/tbe/tbe_alpha1.5.zip. Also included in this build are links to some of my test levels, where I develop and validate mechanics in isolation, the explosions from 1.45 and some more bug fixes. 

As well as this, I'm still continuing to improve dynamically exploding walls, setting up the final milestones for the complete Alpha demo, starting to develop a theme/story and finalizing a few other details. So what is left? I have 5 items that I'm currently working through in various stages, and 8 more items that I have not yet started. (This neat chart was produced by Visual Studio's free and online version of Team Foundation Server).