🎵 It's the tri-hebdo news, where we talk about three news each three weeeeks 🎵
I decided to find a little jingle for this segment, but then I realized it's written, which inevitably makes it considerably less good.
Anyway, what am I going to talk about? The deeeeemo, of course, and a bit of networking.
Quick TLDR: the demo will release on September 1st, 2026 on Steam (and it might already be accessible to some lucky folks).
So what's in the demo?
It lasts about thirty minutes and contains a modified version of the first part of the adventure (notably a fart bonus and techno music that both show up later in the full version).
The final version of the demo (dare I say "gold"?) is currently in validation.
A GameDev's Wanderings
After much hesitation, I decided to build the demo in a brand new Godot project, since I only expected minor modifications (I was wrong...), and it let me keep a separate git repo. The demo is bound to disappear once the full game releases anyway. The free first chapter will cover what this demo does, so it won't serve a purpose anymore.
Pros:
I can rearrange things however I want
No regressions to worry about in the code
No complex demo/not-demo logic in the scenes, and no need to manage exported elements per version.
Con:
Realizing that, for Steam, I'll have to rebuild the entire networking layer in 2 weeks, and then bring all of it back — along with the dual WebSocket/SteamSocket networking system — into the full version.
Yeah, because I didn't mention it, but...
Networking Overhaul
In testing, I use a WebSocket version of the game. This makes it easily portable across a bunch of environments, and even to a Web version. However, there's a Steam Lobby system that's particularly simple to implement, which handles invites and, more importantly, offers better reliability than the WebSocket relay hosted on my own servers.
The Steam version will therefore let you choose your relay system from the demo onward (to enable cross-platform play) BUT will default to Steam's servers for better convenience and higher reliability.
In the end, the trickiest part was cleanly stripping out the new Steam references from the other versions so as not to bloat them — though that might be too deep into Godot specifics to cover here. If anyone reading this is interested, let me know, I'd be happy to share my solution to you, fellow geeks!
Current Assets and Closing Words
It's still just as hot out, and since the last few weeks were spent cranking out networking code and fixing bugs for the demo, I don't have much eye candy to show you — so here's a chunk of code instead.
See you in two weeks for the demo!!
And in 3 weeks for the next TriHebdo,
Have a great summer 🌞,
Le DoubleSept