Finally! The totally not near releasable build is up and playable.

This took a little longer, the gamemaker 2.3 patch changed a stack of low level stuff. The changes are great and well overdue, but some people were using that. I was one.

Always an oppurtunity to refactor.

So, it's up. I can finally move on the next level. The effort of polishing it up to vaguely playable across all three levels to establish a baseline of gameplay was totally worth it. I have a much stronger grasp of what I'm trying to do and how it will play out over time.

I can very much see the need to make significant changes to the art style ... but it's cute enough for the moment and I'm a programmer. 

The AI needs a little work, it's still a bit twitchy which is also cute in an ash kind of way but visible to the player and distracting.

Overall though, I played my own game from beginning to end and won and it wasn't easy and I had fun ... so I've got that going for me I guess.