Hello everyone!
In the last update, I mentioned that the Next Steam Update will be about the future of Mall Craze. You already read the title and saw the thumbnail, so now you might guess that the capital letters in “Next Steam Update” were not a typo. And you’re right - it was a small hint :)
Release date for Mall Craze
New shop type and character models form the last update are all fine, but what good of a use do they have if you can't actually play the game, right? A couple of weeks ago, Mall Craze had it's 3rd anniversary of being in the development. I'm not really sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing :). Believe it or not, at the very beginning, this was supposed to be a small personal project. 6 months maybe. In and out, quick adventure. That changed fairly quickly, as I expanded the game more and more.
Ok, what am I still blabbering about … you want to know the release date! Here it is!
Mall Craze will release on September 19th, 2023 as an Early Access title.
I've decided to mark this release as an Early Access because I had to be honest. Developing the game into the complete state as I envision it, will take a long time. A time that you could actually play the game in Early Access.
I've picked the September 2023 mainly because I believe that at that time, the game will be "Early Access ready", and will contain a good amount of content that you can enjoy. The game was supposed to launch Q4 this year, but that was before I had to make some big decisions earlier this year (more on this later in this update). A decision that was mandatory in order continue the development.
Steam Next Fest
I've mentioned numerous times (mainly on Discord) that I would like to participate in some of the upcoming Steam Next Fest. An event where, for a small period of time, you can play games that have not been released yet.
I now have a concrete goal, and that is that Mall Craze will appear in the 2nd Next Fest of 2023. The second Next Fest might be held sometime around June, as it was this year. Please don't confuse this with the upcoming Next Fest that might be held sometime around February 2023.
Mall Craze in Unreal Engine 5 / C++
The reason that there were few (read "no") updates since January is simple. Well, the reason is simple. The solution, a bit less, but definitely not impossible. You may know from other sources that I was developing Mall Craze using Unreal Engine's visual scripting language called Blueprints. This system is amazing, and I absolutely love it! So far, it was perfect for 99% of things that I've tried to do with it.
But here goes the remaining 1%. No need to add, that this 1% is very crucial to the overal game. I would even say critical. What is it then? Those of you who tried the Alpha version (Kickstarter backers) may already know what was missing in that version - the ability to Save Game.
Mall Craze is and will be a fairly large game in terms of the amount of information that is reguired to be stored in your saves. The default Blueprint's solution is not really ideal for this amount and complexity of data, as it does not provide the ability to save games any other way than binary file format. This could potentially lead to problems in the future, where I plan to expand the game even after release. Or even in rare cases, where save games might go corrupt. Resurrecting these kinds of saves would be very difficult.
It also makes it a bit more difficult to potentially mod the game.
So what's the solution?
Blueprints vs C++
There are 2 main ways you can develop games in Unreal Engine: Blueprints and C++ (or a combination of both). Because I couldn’t see a good solution to this problem using Blueprints, I was looking for the solution using C++, and the solutions it provided were ideal to continue the development.
Unreal Engine 5
With the decision mentioned above, there was really no major reason to stick to Unreal Engine 4 at that point.
Going forward, Mall Craze will be developed in Unreal Engine 5. This also means that Mall Craze, at least on paper for now, will be able to support new major features introduced in UE5, and also features that are not yet known at this point. One of these features could be, for example, Unreal's new global illumination and reflection system called Lumen. As simplistic as Mall Craze's graphics may be, I believe it can still greatly profit from this feature.
Going forward
The switch from Blueprints to C++ is a huge undertaking. Mostly because I decided not to only port the game, but basically rewrite it from the ground up. That alone takes a huge amount of time, but all of that is balanced with improvements to the game. In a way, I'm sort of making Mall Craze 2 without ever releasing the original game ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Just to give you a small glimpse of some improvements to the core gameplay. In the original Blueprints version of Mall Craze, one placable object = one product you can sell. That was easy to implement, but later on proved to be a difficult obstacle to overcome without rewriting half of the entire game. What will be possible now, is that one product table/wall will be able to hold multiple products, and you will be able to set prices and see statistics independently.
I'm really looking forward to start sharing screenshots and videos from this new version with you!
Thank you everyone for your support, and take care! :)
- Milan, Developer