The latest developer diary - at least during Early Access - from the Vox Vivat series brings both the most anticipated and unexpected improvements to Vivat Slovakia. Let’s dive in!
First Things First – Thank You!
Before the Early Access release of Vivat Slovakia, we published a series called Vivat Wednesdays, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the development of the project. We managed to release ten of these updates, giving you insights into our relentless work—modeling buildings, roads, cars, and characters in an intense workflow. These regular diaries not only kept you informed but also motivated us to always have something new to share.
The first Side-A of the game, the Early Access version, launched on April 18th on Steam, allowing players to experience years of hard work from dozens of people. It was an incredible feeling to watch streams and Let’s Plays clocking in at dozens—even hundreds—of hours. That weekend, Vivat Slovakia became the most-streamed game in our small country, Slovakia.
The biggest question—whether all these years of work were worth it—was clearly answered. Inspired by your support, we dove back into improving the Early Access version and began writing a new series of bilingual developer diaries: Vox Vivat.
This seventh edition of Vox Vivat is one of the most important, as it marks the conclusion of live presentations for our work-in-progress game. We deeply appreciate you reading this text and allowing us to share what we’ve prepared—thanks to you.
On behalf of everyone working on Vivat Slovakia, thank you so much!
Optimization
Vivat Slovakia is CPU-bound, meaning the processor does the bulk of the work compared to the graphics card. As the saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link—and for many players, that weak link is the CPU due to the immense amount of background calculations in the game. Our optimization efforts focus on reducing the number of calculations (e.g., rendering only 15 buildings instead of 30 without noticeable differences) and balancing the workload between the CPU and GPU by shifting calculations to the graphics card wherever possible.
As of this Vox Vivat entry, the code for Vivat Slovakia has been adjusted over 5,000 times using the Unity Version Control tool. Recent optimizations include a more efficient vehicle and NPC rendering system, with improved despawning techniques that conserve your PC's resources without changing the city's population density.
Our programmers also fine-tuned resource allocation to ensure the game doesn't load more light sources than the player can see. Additionally, vegetation draw distances have been adjusted to be less aggressive—but if you’re running a powerhouse PC, we’ve added a setting to customize vegetation distances.
These optimizations have significantly improved FPS. In our tests, we managed to gain an incredible 20 extra frames per second (on the below listed PC). Be sure to share your results on our Steam discussions or Discord!
- CPU: Ryzen 5600X
- GPU: RTX 3060 12GB
- RAM: 32GB 3600 MHz
BEFORE
AFTER
8 New MTBIKER Cycling Time Trials
Cycling in digital Bratislava is expanding! We’ve refined the road bike mechanics, which you can now find parked in front of your apartment in Petržalka or the MTBIKER store in Ružinov. This update also includes new voiceovers of Milan’s panting and muttered curses during his athletic efforts.
As you unlock new routes, you’ll compete in races against trams or trains. Completing the trials will reward you with functional accessories like a dynamo, a helmet, or a cycling outfit. If you manage to complete all the new routes, a vintage mountain bike will be waiting for you at the both locations mentioned above.
New Radio Stations with Licensed Music + Streamer Mode
We’re preparing new radio stations for the final version of the game, featuring some of Slovakia’s most iconic artists. A hip-hop station is being curated by Šajmo from Refresher, while our sound designer Ttea is crafting a retro techno station. In addition to entertaining DJ commentary and a stellar lineup of music unlike anything seen in Slovak games, we plan to introduce a Streamer Mode.
With Streamer Mode enabled, licensed tracks will be removed from the rotation, letting streamers enjoy the radio stations without fear of copyright strikes.
Hidden First-Person Mode
Our programmers have been experimenting with a first-person view, and in many cases, it looks fantastic. While we don’t plan to overhaul reload animations or remaster vehicle interiors, we may include a hidden first-person mode as an optional cheat for adventurous players in Side-B. Let us know on Discord if this is something you’d like!
New Buildings Based on Real Locations
The game map is based on the real city of Bratislava. While scaled down for realism, some areas are nearly indistinguishable from their real-world counterparts. Most recently, we’ve updated two locations: a building at Račianske mýto and another in Ružinov, near the old bus station.
New Cars: Prinz Piano
We’re adding a luxurious new vehicle to Vivat Slovakia’s car roster: the Prinz Piano. This classic car is well-known among enthusiasts and fits beautifully into the 1990s setting. Ivan brought two versions to Bratislava—a sedan and a family-friendly station wagon.
The Second Half of the Story
Since the Early Access launch, we’ve worked tirelessly to add new content and optimize the game. Over the next few months, we’ll enter a quieter phase to focus on preparing the launch trailer and the second half of the story missions.
You can look forward to action-packed missions with Belasý and even a trip to neighboring Austria across the border. The game will feature new mechanics and interiors, pushing gameplay to the next level. However, the story will also take a darker turn, with missions based on real events, such as the kidnapping of the president’s son.
Thank you for being part of this journey. We can’t wait to share the next chapter of Vivat Slovakia with you!
Patch notes 0.9.5b53
New Features:
- Added bike time trials
- Added bike sprint support for controllers
- Added new player outfit – Cyclist
- Added new cars: Prinz Piano and Prinz Piano Combi
Changes:
- Journalist’s car in the mission “Private Eyes and Dirty Lies” can’t be destroyed otherwise, the player loses
- Car abilities now use a different default keybind than the Honk feature to prevent progress lock in missions where honking is required
- Removed car spawnpoints/waypoint where not logical
- Optimizations:
- Optimized physics calculations
- Optimized heavy scripts to be more performant
- Optimized internal setting values
- Optimized NPC spawning - there will be a lot less NPCs that the player wouldn’t be able to see anyway, which greatly improves performance
- Optimized Car spawning - there will be a lot less cars that the player wouldn’t be able to see anyway, which helps to offload physics calculations and increase performance
- Optimized vegetation distances and removed a ton of “hidden” vegetation (grass in buildings etc.)
- Optimized lights
- Optimized particle effects
- Optimized lot of scripts which were allocating garbage and decreasing performance
- Optimized terrain rendering (decreasing polycount by around 55% without compromising visual quality)
Bugfixes:
- Fixed car glass materials
- Fixed car horn’s sound effect sometimes getting stuck after the player exists a car
- Fixed player inability to move camera while being a passenger
- Fixed player inability to switch radios while being a passenger
- Fixed car radio playing after player as a passenger exits car
- Fixed player inability to jump or equip any weapon after entering and exiting a car while reloading
- Fixed weapons shooting through walls
- Fixed terrain clipping in some areas
- Fixed player not dying underwater if on bicycle
- Fixed horse racing reset rigged state in the “Giddy up” mission when player leaves the chunk and comes back
- Fixed target waypoints in “The Prodigal Son” mission, occasionally preventing mission to progress
- Fixed object flickering due to incorrect occlusion settings on some props
- Fixed audio being registered twice when playing one shots, resulting in more frequent cleanups and performance hiccups
- Fixed IK not working after jumping and then aiming
- Fixed Laura not properly exiting the car in “Fares of the Unknown” and “Giddy up” missions, resulting in playing her audio reactions on crash, even when she is not in the car