A pretty good month this month for updates and improvements. With patches uploaded prior which has enabled Steam Achievements to now work and for window re-sizing to now be possible + 11 new in-game exercise tutorials were uploaded in a patch. There was a sound bug but that was fixed quickly. Thank you to Moo and Novacat for such useful feedback last month.
For the 1.4 build:
* 60 new music tracks added. This means that there is a full 154 song playlist. Players can always click on the mute button and exercise along to their favourite playlist on their mobile phone too, as the timer alerts still sound.
* 10 new in-game tutorials added.
* Tutorials are loaded externally now and music is streamed from an external file. This freed up a lot of RAM memory usage and allowed me to add those extra 60 songs.
(Edit after Moo's feedback: By external loading I mean that the files are loaded or streamed from an included file within the actual game package, which is common practice for games using a lot of sound or image files in order not to hit the 2GB RAM limit for 32 bit games. This will not have any effect on players' PC performance or bandwidth - just files included in a separate folder within the actual game package that makes up the executable.)
Even though the song playlist is full now, I'm still not satisfied as the same song can sometimes be heard twice in a single workout. I will fix this by changing this so that the player will never hear the same song twice in a single workout. This I will do by changing the song playlist from an array data structure into a DS list structure. This I hope to do for the next update and also start externally loading sprite images, which will free up even more memory so that I can add even more content.
Thank you for being patient as the app/game fills out and becomes better through feedback from players. As always, I try to be consistent at working on the game and polishing it. Here is a record of the previous month's activities:
3/8/20 - Looking into why Steam achievements aren't unlocking and re-organising code to try to fix this.
4/8/20 - Looking into screen resizing options in Gamemaker Studio 2.
5/8/20 - Improved Plank Leg Raises sprite & experimenting with externally loading tutorial images.
6/8/20 - Added new Plank Leg Raises animation. Tested new Steam achievements code but achievements still not working - need to try another approach.
10/8/20 - Trying different ways to get Steam achievements working.
11/8/20 - Looking into why Steam achievements are still not working and found that I need Steamworks SDK 1.42 to use with Gamemaker, not the latest SDK version. This could be the problem . . . Re-uploaded the game to Steam using SDK 1.42 but achievements still not working.
12/8/20 - Looking at Steam settings in Gamemaker engine preferences and trying a few things . . . Yay! Steam achievements are working okay now :)
13/8/20 - Window re-sizing enabled for the game.
17/8/20 - Changed 'Flexibility & Balance' wording for the configurations on the GUI to 'Flexibility Exercises' for better clarity, from Moo's feedback + Set the master volume to return to full in the GUI, even if it is turned down using the volume slider whilst exercising, from Novacat's feedback.
18/8/20 - Turning all existing tutorials into externally loading files to free up more memory.
19/820 - Added 11 new tutorials and uploaded them as a patch.
24/8/20 - Updated to latest Gamemaker 2 build and changed all script calls to function calls in line with new GML script calling changes.
25/8/20 - Jab, cross, hook to body, lead uppercut, jab cross, combo punch and speedbag tutorials made.
26/8/20 - Game testing after GM2 update.
27/8/20 - High knees tutorial made + learning how to externally load sound files.
31/8/20 - Knee Strikes and Scissors tutorials made.
2/9/20 - External music file streaming system set up.
3/9/20 - Music tracks 1 - 20 set up to externally stream + testing each song.
4/9/20 - Music tracks 21 - 40 set up to externally stream + testing each song.
7/9/20 - Music tracks 41 - 60 set up to externally stream + testing each song.
8/9/20 - Music tracks 61 - 94 set up to externally stream + testing each song + added 6 new music tracks.
9/9/20 - Added 54 new music tracks to make a complete playlist of 154 songs in total.
10/9/20 - Added the 10 in-game tutorials + game play testing + Build version 1.4 uploaded to Steam.