The biggest drawback has been that, in order to show the heart of the game to potential publishers, we had been implementing gameplay elements in a somewhat unnatural sequence. We assumed that the people evaluating our game had already played other RPGs, so the focus had been on showing what would differentiate Harbinger from other games in the genre. We had some of our more advanced AI implemented before we even started our collision detection system. In order to demonstrate typical level feel, we coded some of the trickier background interactivity prior to our level switching code. We've spent the last few months addressing these inconsistencies.
Collision detection is now in place.
This naturally led to adding the melee combat system. For those who haven't been following this game, Silverback is a very small group of close friends. We only have six people, so everybody is kept extremely busy. Steve Andrusyszyn and I have coded not only the game, but also around fifteen different utilities and testbeds. Unlike larger companies, we have one person who designs, models, textures and animates all of our characters.