We had a bit of a delay this month due to illness from some of our contributors, along with other complications following the holidays.

This month has mostly been visual progress and code grinding behind the scenes. We're still refining existing bits of the game, as well as working on new tiles, sprites and UI elements for things you haven't seen, yet. 

Noteworthy Changes:

• Changed the way customer and worker resources are initialized at the start of a game. They are now read directly from disc when needed, rather than kept hanging around as exported variables (moving these makes them subject to breaks/bugs)
• Moved about 20-35% of repetitive functions during the Work and Recruiting phases into static functions/classes
•  Cleaned up another 10% of the game directory that was simply old/outdated files and redundant code
• Added new abilities for all workers not featured the legacy prototype (Healthy, Touch Starved, Devour, etc.)
• Changed to a custom mouse cursor
• SKL/CLS/SLU now have their own icons/symbols in addition to explanatory text
• Reworked the way UI is combined with tile maps. Tile maps now rest in a Node2D while UI elements rest on a CanasLayer or Control node above (situational)
• Reworked SceneManager to use explicit file paths, rather than exported variables (see change #1)
• Retooled functions that trigger on game start into a small "_Workers" class
• General code clarification: Added 40-90 comments on various lines of code to make code more self-explanatory for collaborators
• Added various chunks of  "defensive programming" checks that prevent game crashes when interconnected scenes are tested independently

The first six monsters to be featured in the game are included below! Bern, Grace, Len, PK, Ruse and Winny.  

We intend to feature more, but are currently trying to stay within budget and see how the rest of things play out.

More art progress next month.