In our last devlog, we mentioned focusing on visuals and UI, and while this remains true, we also dove into a deep efficiency rabbit hole. How fast can we make the game? This became an obsession, but more on that later.
Auctions
In our last devlog, we mentioned developing the auction system. While the system is still in it's early stages, the visuals for the auction houses came from the artist, and they look stunning. We wanted different tiers of auctions, so as the player progresses, they can access more expensive auction houses. The visuals represent this progression, and the final result is pretty cool.
Example of the different auction houses.
Financials
We also worked on the financials page, mainly line charts. The charts are custom-built since ready-made solutions didn’t work. We plan to add bar graphs for more informative visuals and to make data "glanceable" in the game. The charts still have bugs, like negative numbers performing oddly (lines going out of bounds).
Currently, the financial page is simple and a bit barren. For now, it serves its purpose of giving the player a picture of the stable's current financials. We plan to improve this page later but believe our time is better spent elsewhere for now.
The financial overview.
You can make a deep-dive into the income and costs.
The assets and liabilities, the option to take loans are now in the game.
Efficiency (skip if you don't care for nerd stuff)
We went deep into optimizing efficiency. Previously, a year took 30-40 minutes to simulate, meaning a day took 5-6 seconds. By moving many functions to pure SQL, we drastically improved this to 1 second a day, or 6 minutes a year. We handle bulk transactions rather than individual ones, reducing thousands of transactions to just a few.
This required rewriting some custom logic, and while the code isn’t as universal, it’s much faster. For instance, paying all employees monthly in a large stable now takes 1-2 transactions instead of thousands. However, our first round of optimizations broke many functions, so it took a long time to fix these issues. It's also very tedious to code stuff like this, since you don't really see any "new" progress.
You can see where some of the optimizations were made.
Our goal for a day simulation is under 500ms, but we’ll revisit this once the game is finished.
Here are the current execution times for daily functions:
- Daily training: 359 ms, 36.56% of total
- Daily race register: 154 ms, 15.68% of total
- Monthly salary payments: 102 ms, 10.39% of total
- Monthly breeding: 94 ms, 9.57% of total
- Horse value calculation: 90 ms, 9.16% of total
- Need to liquidate horses check: 82 ms, 8.35% of total
- Hiring daily process: 35 ms, 3.56% of total
- Role-based stars daily update: 22 ms, 2.24% of total
- Get stable economic factors: 22 ms, 2.24% of total
- World economics: 9 ms, 0.92% of total
- Births daily: 5 ms, 0.51% of total
- Horse death daily: 5 ms, 0.51% of total
- Monthly loan payments: 2 ms, 0.20% of total
- Racing daily: 1 ms, 0.10% of total
Game Balance
We also improved the data tracking in the game, developing 121 different metrics tracked daily. These include metrics from the average cash of the stables to the total prime racing age horses. This foundation will make balancing the game easier in the future. We can now generate a 300-page PDF on the game world’s performance in under a minute. This will be improved further during actual game balancing.
Example of a graph that tracks the number of foals and yearlings in game.
Focus
We received mail from a fan about the game’s complexity, suggesting we focus on creating a working product before adding complexity. We agree. We’ve discussed many features still in the pipeline: countries, trotting, steeplechase, breeds, jockey mode, and more.
Last devlog, we spoke about the grant application and the game design document. A game design document is a detailed document describing the game in detail, that helps to scope the game to avoid scope creep. It's a living document, but the "frame" should not change. We also submitted the grant application, we will get the information if we got the grant or not on July 1st. Let's keep our thumbs up!
It made clear that we are making a horse racing managerial game first and foremost. It should be made clear, we want to make this the most realistic horse racing simulator in the world. But we have to be realistic, we don't have the resources to make that in the first iteration of the game. As a comparison, Sports Interactive Inc. (the developers of Football Manager, a huge inspiration), currently employs around 300 people. In contrast, Sheep Meadow Road Games currently employs one (1) part-time employee, me.
So it's clear that we can't reach that level, yet.
We have been discussing with a Swedish game development school about a possible intern, but nothing has been decided yet. While the intern would work for free, one of the company ethos is to pay everyone fairly for their contribution. Since the company bank account is close to zero, we will probably pay them with a revenue share programme, if they do a good job. But as said, nothing has been decided yet.
Real-Life Racecourses
Speaking of the level of detail, one of the top wishes from the fans is realistic scheduling and racecourses. But as they also point out, we can't just put whatever we want in the game since we would then have licensing issues. Just for fun, we tried contacting 10 world-renown racecourses. None of them has yet answered our emails, and there is a slim chance that they will, but let's follow up on this in the next devlog.
If anyone has contacts with a racecourse or brand interested in being featured, please reach out to [email protected].
Summer & Video Devlogs
With summer vacation approaching, devlogs might be less frequent as we take some time to relax. We’re also considering video devlogs, despite lacking experience in making YouTube videos. It’s a learning curve, but it might be more relaxing to consume than text. Let us know if this is something that you would be interested in.
StayAtHomeDev featured our game in one of his videos, I would recommend you to check him out, he has fantastic content!
What’s next
Our next update will likely continue to focus on the interfaces for buying and selling horses and the auction system. The next new key feature will likely be the news system, after that a overhaul of the race simulation system. Once these two systems are in game, the game should be ready to be playtested. We will inform you more about this in the future.
We are continuously working to enhance Horse Racing Manager, and your feedback is invaluable. Don't forget to add Horse Racing Manager to your Steam wishlist! Your support is crucial for us and greatly appreciated.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2740170/Horse_Racing_Manager/