First things first, yes, hi. I'm still working on the big update even though I haven't posted anything here.
Been a while. How's it going?
Seems to depend on what time one ask's a question like this. Right now though? Things are going! I've been working on the randomized level system for a few weeks, and that part of the update is basically done now (the technical side of things, that is)
This is what the generator looks like right now. It's just a bunch of code basically at this point, without too much of anything visual. So if you don't understand what's going on, don't worry.
Basically, the grid represents sections. Each section is crafted from four pieces, that have been hand crafted (which hasn't been done yet, more on that later..) What this means, is that every single section and room will look like it had some thought put into it, and they make sense, BUT still every single one of the sections will be unique, and with every play through you'll meet a set of new sections (every play through will be different!)
Right, what else?
I've been doing the transition from GameMaker Studio 1, to Studio 2.
So far I've been constantly learning new stuff (which I very much enjoy!) and all in all things have been going pretty good. The jump from Studio 1 is far from finished, as the differences between the two were much bigger than what I expected (I have over 10 years of experience with GameMaker, and this is the first time I've really had to stop and scratch my head from jumping to a newer version of GM. Which is a good thing though!)
One thing I learned from moving to the new engine, is how to monitor the use of resources within the software itself! This is a huge thing to me, as I'm kind of sort of obsessed with optimization (The Walking Vegetables already runs at steady 60FPS 1080p with only intel i5's onboard graphics) but with this new tool, I managed to squeeze in a few more FPS's here and there. Check this out:
Before
After
All you need to understand from these two pics, is that I managed to optimize a couple of scripts in particular that were fairly heavy without me even knowing about it, to less than half of what they used to be. This won't boost your FPS by 500, but it could be a life or death situation on the less powerful PC's out there (or maybe one day even mobile..? Who knows..)
So yeah, the transition from GMS1 will be taking longer than expected. But if everything goes smoothly (nothing ever does) we should be able to get a new update for The Walking Vegetables before the end of the year! (fingers crossed!)
How's life then?
Well.. For those of you who don't yet know this: I actually had to move out from my office just last week. It's been rather hard on me, as I can't really put it in words how much having an office really helped me out. The feeling you get when you actually go to work. And not in a negative way, I mean like.. I had an office, just for making games. And that's what I did. I went there, and I made games every day. Well, a game. But still, point stands. It was definitely a turn of page in the book of Still Running.
Ofcourse, that doesn't mean I would work any less, or stop entirely. So don't worry about that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JqHYuSq_pw
I also went to Vaasa Game Days which is a local, small, game event here. Fun fact, Vaasa Game Days 2016 directly affected on The Walking Vegetables (fun fact #2: original idea for TWV was to actually make a small mobile game in less than a month. We had been working on TWV for only two weeks for the last VGD, and people enjoyed the game already back then, which resulted in me realizing that holy shet, we had something much more in our hands than just a simple mobile game..)
Vaasa Game Days 2017 was a success to me! People were LINING in front of my stand to get and try out The Walking Vegetables!
Okok, that's enough, geez
Yeah, I feel like that's enough text for one evening. I don't hate people enough to write anything longer.
I really hope people understand why there hasn't been weekly updates for a long time. I will say however, that this update will be worth the wait! I'm really excited about it all, and I hope you guys are too!
