Update 3
Changes to gameplay mechanics, this time with gifs
Hi all, here is the update for January. It is just a few minutes late, unfortunately, so it will technically be February when you are reading it.
Magellania Changes
First things first. Last month I made some changes to Juno 06. For the record, I’ve moved some of those changes over to Magellania.
You can find a full list of those changes in last month’s post.
Once those patches were applied, I could finally get back to work on Game 3. It had been a welcome break, but now I needed to focus.
Cutscene Camera Animations
Early this month, I dedicated some time to polishing some aspects of the cutscene’s camera transitions and fade ins.
The original plan was to finish all the cutscenes in one go, but I changed my mind because the gameplay still hasn’t been completely hammered out yet. This means, in order to advance the story, I’m drawing a lot of empty placeholder gameplay maps without understanding what will go in them later. I don’t want to move forward on an unstable foundation, so I paused the work on cutscenes to work on the gameplay components. This means that the amount of cutscenes finished remains at around 33%.
Changes for Performance
First, I started work on experiments to try and expand the game’s scope. Mainly, I wanted to improve the performance so the battles could be bigger in scale without lagging the game. Once again, I found myself wrestling with an age-old problem: optimization.
In the end, I couldn’t get it to work exactly the way I wanted it to due to engine limitations, so I made some compromises. Mainly in three major ways:
Switch to hitscan bullets. I originally wanted the bullets to function as “bullet hell” or “shmup” styled bullets, in that they could stay onscreen for a while and would have to be avoided. I’ve switched to hitscan-styled bullets, which helped a lot with performance while still keeping this aspect of “dodgeable attacks” in the game.
Multiple characters per unit. I wanted to avoid this since it might feel cheesy, but I think if done the right way, it’s probably the most effective change I can make if I want to save performance.
Disorganized formations. If you look older posts, you’ll see units standing in a grid formation. This took a lot of math, and I was pleased with it, but it had to go for multiple reasons, including the performance cost.
I also gained a lot of optimizations by consulting someone who had sage insight on the niche workings of the engine, and he gave me some tips for saving frames I definitely wouldn’t have figured out myself, so special thanks to that particular person.
Here, you can see the effects of those changes demonstrated.
Before the changes, it was difficult to have battles showing more than 80 characters on the map, but that number has changed to be around 700. Now things can finally get a bit more chaotic.
Fortifications
I also added some more buildings into the game, mainly defensive fortifications for a base, which can improve the sturdiness of its buildings. It’s not a huge gameplay change, but it was mostly added for its visual effect.
Flying Units
I took some time this month to start experimenting with a new class of units: flyers. I think this could add dimension to the game’s visuals.
There’s still a lot of unknown factors about how I will implement this new unit class, but I’m sure I’ll figure out answers to those questions eventually.
Anyway, that wraps up this month’s update. Gradually, I’ve been sensing a strange force in my life that’s been threatening to change me and everything I know. What does it mean for me? Do I dare to put my hope in it, or will I just end up where I started? I’m not sure.
It’s been making me busy, however. Busy doing things I should’ve been doing, things I’ve put off for years. It might be a permanent change. Who knows what will happen? But I’ll keep working on this project whenever I get a chance. I don’t intend to drop it.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them, and I’ll answer them either on my Discord or in the next post.
See you next time.