Hey!
It's been another month and time for an update from the developer - aka me 🤓
Last month I warned you that the Developer News might be a bit "boring", because everything I worked on was internal stuff you couldn't really see. Well - this month is the opposite. A LOT has landed since last time 😄
Almost all of it is on the Experimental version right now, so if you want to try it before everyone else: Right click Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". And please tell me what you think - that's the whole point of me pushing it there.
Controller support is actually playable now
This is the thing I teased last time, and it's no longer just talk. The UI has been through a major refactoring, and so has pretty much everything around input handling, so the game now works with both keyboard/mouse and gamepad/controller.
It's not 100% done yet, but it's MUCH better than before. Menus, the Inventory, the workshop UI - it can all be navigated with a controller now, the gamepad button prompts got a new and more complete icon set, and I've fixed a whole bunch of the annoying "selection got lost and now I can't navigate anything" type bugs.
With Steam Deck, Steam Machine and Steam Controller all being a thing, this is more important than ever.
A brand new Workshop
The entire workshop/mod.io integration has been rebuilt with a new UI and a new mod.io SDK, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Some of the highlights:
It remembers your subscriptions without you signing in manually - it just uses your Steam account (First time you start this version you will be prompted with mod.io's privacy policies to accept that an account will be created using your Steam account. The new mod.io SDK doesn't allow for none-signed in user anymore and I had to upgrade, both because this can do more and are in general better, but also because I can't know how long the old one keep working, as it's like 4 years old. Anyway, this means that you are now always signed in to mod.io in the Workshop automatically, which gives a lot of benefits. Additionally, if you already have an mod.io account, you can connect your Steam account too, so its all linked together, so the system always knows its you)
You can up/down vote mods from inside the game and follow creators
You can follow and subscribe to collections. I plan to make some "Developer Approved" collections, so new players can get a good start with mods I know work and are of high quality
When you join a host you are no longer auto subscribed to all their mods. They are downloaded as "temp" mods that stick around for 30 days, so you don't redownload the same stuff again and again, but they also don't clutter up your own mod list
There is a "Migrate old subscriptions" button under Settings -> Advanced, so you don't have to go find and subscribe to all your old mods manually. And a button to delete the old mod data that's just taking up space on your disk. ONE NOTE, if you plan to switch between "default" and "experimental" version, you shouldn't delete the legacy mod data, as you will then miss it on "default". So keep it for now, but once this version becomes the "default" one, then this button can help you free up some space
Mods are loading a LOT faster now
If you play with a lot of mods, this one is for you. I did some serious digging into why the game got slow with big mod collections:
In my test with almost 400 mods enabled, loading went from about 5½ minutes to just under 3 minutes
Closing the game with many mods no longer takes forever - it just closes
The Inventory used to freeze the game for several seconds when you opened it or switched tabs, and tank the framerate while it was open. That's gone - it should now be fast and smooth no matter how many mods you have
Same for the framerate drop in the main menu with many mods
Oh, and the game no longer throws a startup error and refuses to load your mods when you start without internet.
A new look - and a smarter way to keep the framerate up
I've been playing around with the postprocessing profile and how things glow. All in the name of making the fireworks pop more, look better and making the general game look and feel better. It's been a bit back and forth (thanks for all the feedback on that, seriously), but where it's at now: the base game materials and lights - streetlamps, ceiling lights, flashlight, torch, fuses, sky/weather - have been tuned so they fit the new look instead of being overly bloomy and glowy. The Bloom setting is also much simpler now: the slider is just the actual bloom intensity from 0 to 10, where 0 turns it completely off.
At the same time I reworked how the game scales down effects to try and keep the framerate up when things get crazy. Before it was pretty much all-or-nothing and you could really see it kick in. Now it scales smoothly in small steps, starting with the things you are least likely to notice, and fireworks far away get scaled down before the ones right in front of you. Ideally you shouldn't see it working at all - you should just get a more stable framerate in the big shows.
I also fixed the dynamic performance system slowly turning everything down when you play with vsync, because it mistook the capped framerate for the game struggling 🙈
Also worth mentioning
Seasons! The host can now change the season in the Host tab, not just the weather. Before it was locked to winter, which is why the sun was always so low on the sky
Emotes - a very first draft is in there, currently only via the fm-player-emote command. They need work and will get proper UI later
4th of July decorations have been up in Town, City and Ranch for most of the month - hope you got to blow something up with them 🤫
What's next
Multiple things are in the works, however the next bigger thing is Achievements, which I should have/hope to have done by the next Developer News 🤞
First I need to figure out what achievements make sense and are possible to do at all 🤓
... and then a little teaser for a complete refresh of the base game characters I'm working on too. 🕺
If you want to help shape all of this, jump on the Experimental version and let me know what works and what doesn't - it genuinely makes a difference.
That's it for now - need to get back to work 🤓🕺
Change log
I have pushed the following updates since last Developer News.
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- Enjoy!