I was so happy today that my performance issues were over that I worked two hours on 100RTBD instead of the customary one ;) I've created three new rooms and advanced the story quite a bit. The player is now at 67 infopacks - bordering on 68 - so while the total map percentage is around 45, I'd say that i'm 68% done with the core main story of the game! Numbers!
Time spent on the project so far: 688 hours
Currently working on: Moving on with the story
This only took like, six hours, but the framerate is back at a solid 60. What a waste of time that was! Tomorrow I'll be back on fun stuff such as content creation, and maybe a releasable playable version this week? That would mean a bunch of playtesting, and that'd take a few days as well... We'll see! At least everything is going smoothly now!
Time spent on the project so far: 686 hours
Currently working on: Fixing performance issues
I've spent a few hours this weekend working on my performance problem; The issue is related to the number of stuff done in the GUI loop, this leads to things being calculated way too often for no reason and that drops the framerate by a considerable amount. I've started to separate the GUI data from the rest of the code, but that's still going to take me a little while. At least after that the core of the issue will be fixed and I'll be able to move on confidently!
Time spent on the project so far: 685 hours
Currently working on: Trying to fix performance issues
I'm kinda losing it. Unity crashed 4 times today and using the profiler has become increasingly difficult as it crashes itself. OnGUI is killing my game for no good reason, opening the menu drops the framerate to insane levels depending on which panel I have opened. I think there is a chance that the recent addition of Vampire Gloves might have broken a lot of the game? They allow you to heal while damaging enemies, but they halve your max level. I think that there is a slight chance that adding equipment checks to the level check might slow the game insanely, I'll try to test that this weekend, exceptionally.
I've gotta say, situations like these are what might tempt me to scrap a project, even 700 hours in.
Time spent on the project so far: 683 hours
Currently working on: Trying to fix performance issues
After some messing around and some very frustrated looks at that framerate counter (15 FPS isn't a pretty thing to see) I've went into the profiler (thank god I learned about that at work!) and found that two things were adding a bunch of time each frame; The first thing is the monster.FixedUpdate function. I programmed that, I know it's not perfect and it does way too many things and it's not optimized at all, so that's fine. I turned that function off (by adding a return; at the first line) and I think I've found the real culprit.
OnGUI is taking insane amounts of time for no good reason. My GUI isn't that complicated, I know I'm not using the newfangled unity UI system but it has worked very well so far and turning my OnGUI function off gives me back that silky smooth 60 FPS that I kinda want for a game like 100RTBD. So confusing.
What should I do? Rollback to a previous version of unity? Remake my UI in the new system? Not to mention that I also had 4 crashes-on-game-start today...
This is getting frustrating.
Time spent on the project so far: 682 hours
Currently working on: Trying to fix performance issues
Screenshot after the jump: Megasolbot lightshow
A couple more rooms done here and there and a few tweaks to that light gun weapon. For some reason I'm still getting really bad framerates (1-5 fps in menus, where nothing is happening) which wasn't the case a week ago, maybe my update to Unity 5.3.1p2 was a mistake? Maybe some stuff that worked well previously started to be broken in that version? I doubt that, but it could be possible!
Anyways, another infopack then another mini-boss fight, then I might just test the whole thing over.
Time spent on the project so far: 681 hours
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Another day, another room and challenge, followed by a new gun that shoots light beams, it's not 100% complete (that'll probably go to tomorrow) but it's almost done. I have some weird framerate issues to investigate as well. I'll probably have a playable version to release at 45% done next week or so!
Time spent on the project so far: 680 hours
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Unity crashed like five times while I was trying to start my project! That's a bit weird, usually programs get better as you upgrade to newer versions, not the other way around! I also think I've managed to fix the stupid indentation problem that was driving me crazy and I got beams half-working, I think! Tomorrow Admiral A will acquire the Light Gun!
Time spent on the project so far: 679 hours
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Not to complain too much about Unity, but this move from 4 to 5 hasn't brought many good things for 100RTBD, for one, the editor crashes way more than it did before, I also dislike how the default selection tool was changed from position to freeform selection, Unity 4 didn't append dumb numbers after clones of game objects you made and now my MonoDevelop is generating weird tabulations everywhere. Some of these things can be fixed, but others are juste the way the engine has evolved, it's still a bit of a pain how these things change.
Also, Application.LoadLevel is now SceneManager.LoadScene, which requires Unity.SceneManagement, why's that?
Time spent on the project so far: 678 hours
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Another room, challenge and piece of gear done, I don't think I'll replay the whole thing and release an intermediary version just yet; There's a clump of rooms I need to work on in State-7 before that'll happen, I guess! The new piece of gear heals the player whenever you deal damage to enemies, but it also halves your level. Like most gear in 100RTBD, there's a balancing act versus positives and negatives! If you're looking for positive-only stuff, gun parts are where it's at, but you can only equip a limited number of those.
Time spent on the project so far: 677 hours
Currently working on: Continuing the story
Done with the General G² fight, so now I'm moving on new content in State-7. I have been wondering the relevancy of testing my game from start in order to release a new playable version; It's not a big secret that I don't think many people would play what I currently have - in fact I actively discourage any who asks, because I'm not a fan of 'early access' games and think that the final product would be the only good thing to try out - but at the same time, you can see the progress that was made. I'm still not sure myself, maybe I should just keep working on it for another while and release it when it's 50% done or something?
Actually, speaking of percentages, the map is 44% done but the main story is more like 66% over.
Time spent on the project so far: 676 hours
Currently working on: General G² Fight
There are apparently no side areas you can explore at this point in the game, so I moved on directly to the General G² fight. It's very similar to the first one, but the room layout is different and the airstrikes are no longer random hits on the ground, instead they can form one of three patterns. It should be done by tomorrow, then I test the whole game and release a new playable version!
Time spent on the project so far: 675 hours
Currently working on: General G² Fight
Screenshot after the jump: General G² Fight
I'm done with the re-fights for the Power of Two series and my skills seem to be holding up, I'll have a bit of tweaking to do on the black hole gun because it destroys most of the bosses very easily. Maybe lower the damage? Now that I'm done with all the boss fights (but one), I'll move on to the General G part of the story. I'm not sure if there are optional side areas you can go to before then, but I'll check that up tomorrow and work accordingly.
Time spent on the project so far: 674 hours
Currently working on: Checking for optional side areas, General G² Fight
It's quite fun to work on core mechanics such as skill effects since it's pretty easy to do and it influences the game greatly. All basic skills are now baked in completely, awaiting some further testing and tweaking in the future. Now I'm working on these optional boss re-fights that you can do at 0-4-1. Should be done by tomorrow, I hope!
Time spent on the project so far: 673 hours
Currently working on: Skill levels + optional boss refights
I've finished the optional boss fight and made sure the optional ending looked good, then I moved on to optional boss refights and decided to work on the higher level of skills you could get at that point; Doing so, I decided to add all skill levels already so they'll be there when I get at the appropriate level! Tomorrow I'll keep on working on the skill levels, then the boss refights, then move on with the story.
Time spent on the project so far: 672 hours
Currently working on: Skill levels + optional boss refights
With more health and healing items, the optional boss fight is a bit more manageable, I've also worked in that optional ending as well, so this segment of the game will be done by tomorrow. After that I'll move on to some exploration bits! Probably new skill effects as well.
Time spent on the project so far: 670 hours
Currently working on: An optional boss fight + ending
Today I've modified the way the game reloads when you die. Instead of bringing you back to the room you died in, it brings you back to the last room you have visited instead. I'm not sure if it works in every room (some rooms might have weird one-way accesses) but I think it's a good solution to the boss being too tough problem.
I've also created a new piece of gear for my convenience called the Speed Reader, when you use it all text boxes are automatically and instantaneously skipped, allowing the player to just play the game without having to read the story and/or allowing me to test boss fights much quicker than having to wade through six text boxes every time. The item isn't dropped by anything yet, but I'll incorporate it into the game at some point!
I've continued working on the Security Six optional boss fight as well, it's going well, but it's a bit too difficult. It's normal for this optional fight to be quite tough, but I wonder if it's because I'm always stuck at 25% max life with no healing items. Perhaps if I gather some more health, it would be more manageable...
Time spent on the project so far: 669 hours
Currently working on: An optional boss fight + ending
Today I've coded the individual pieces of that optional boss fight and started testing them. It's not fully working yet, but most of the stuff at least seems like it won't take much work to fine-tune to my liking.
That being said, I'm realizing now that boss fights could be a potential game-ending trap for the player; It's true that when you revive, if you had less than 25% of your health, I heal you back up to that amount as a goodwill measure, but that's not always enough. What if you just can't beat that boss yet? What if you're missing a few level or some gear before you can attempt that boss?
The game will always place you back in the room you last entered when you die. Should it place you in the room you left instead? Maybe that would be an easy way to fix this.
Time spent on the project so far: 668 hours
Currently working on: An optional boss fight + ending
Screenshot after the jump: Optional Security Six fight
I decided to ignore what was in my design doc regarding this optional boss fight because having the six bosses fight you all at once as-is would be a nightmare of designing a proper fight arena, since they all used their environments in some ways. Instead, you'll fight "light" versions of these formidable enemies, which are still going to be challenging. I'm still not done with this fight - this will probably take one or two days - but it's going well so far!
Time spent on the project so far: 667 hours
Currently working on: An optional boss fight + ending
The first part of the optional way the player can go right now that I'm going to work on is a boss fight against the six members of the Security Seven that you have encountered at the beginning of the game, when they throw "you" off a cliff. After travelling all around Plan-X and finally coming back there, you'll have to fight the six of them at the same time, then triggering one of the game's endings. I'm not sure what the endings will do, maybe you'll need to complete them for a specific achievement?
Time spent on the project so far: 666 hours
Currently working on: An optional boss fight + ending