Major Update 1.1 – OPTIMIZATION, ENGINE UPGRADE, AND MORE! (2/29/2016)
Kingdom Games is proud to announce that FIVE: Guardians of David Major Update 1.1 is live! We’ve focused on optimization, navigation, Impact & responsiveness among many other tweaks and changes. Our optimization passes have drastically improved frame rate across the entirety of the game! Many of you pointed out that navigation was difficult and followers were not responding appropriately and we’ve made great strides to improve both across the game.
Many of you have mentioned our abilities lack the oomph and power that they all appear to have. What is Impact & Responsiveness? When you activate an ability it should quickly respond and provide the type of impact, sound, screen shake, and beautiful visuals that you would expect from a powerful ability. We’ve made great strides to improve Impact & Responsiveness for all of the Mighty Men.
Environment Optimization
FIVE: Guardians of David has had a significant optimization pass across the entire game. We could not be more excited to share the results. The optimization pass touched on everything including art, design, and engineering. Players will experience smoother gameplay throughout!
Optimizing is an ever present thing in our lives, and we will always be working to improve performance for as many configurations as possible. With this update, we take a large step forward. Enjoy.
Navigation
The entire game has received extensive work, tightening up the navigation grids used within the environments. These efforts benefits players with smoother and more reliable movement and combat actions.
Engine Upgrade
We took the step of upgrading the entire game from Unity 4 to the latest Unity 5 version. This upgrade aided in extensive performance boosts. On average, we see a 100% improvement across the game. We’ve seen framerates double on most configurations.
Localization Support (COMING SOON!)
We have taken steps to begin converting the game to support various languages. We feel it is very important to offer the game in as many languages as we can over the course of time, and these initial steps will allow us to do that. Expect to see these languages released in the coming weeks and months. We are going through the content process now and testing the system to ensure it’s a complete localization (excluding VO). All in-game copy will get converted to the proper language via drop-down selection in the options (Once available)
Combat Visual Improvements
In order to help communicate all of the action, several visual changes have been made with the addition of lighting and better color use to distinguish the player, follower, and enemies. In addition, blade trails and other VFX are showing their true glory, with smooth actions and pounding force.
User Interface Change
We wanted to give players a clear health and stamina view for the controlled hero, so we redesigned the main ability bar to give it more mass (no more see through areas that had been non clickable), but also a color that allows the information to be read more easily and not blend in with the background. We really like the new design and would love to hear if you do too! Post any suggestions you may have to improve upon this new version.
Another change you will notice is the Auto Equip feature in the inventory screen, now has a couple of options for you to choose from, that will make better selections based on a type of item increase you are looking for.
Start of Game Alterations
This was a big one, but we feel we have listened to feedback and addressed the comments about the start of the game being a bit slow. We addressed this by expediting the player through parts of the first 4 levels, which we determined to not be critical to story nor character development. Players should find this experience to be far more enjoyable and streamlined to get you into the meat of the game quicker.
Level Configurations and the Save/Continue System
The version of the continue markers and the save system at launch, didn’t mean our goals, and as comments showed, added confusion or frustration to the player. As that is never our goal, we have made an initial pass to address some of the frustration.
How it works now:
- During the play session, the continue markers work as progress through a map.
- A Save Game will save what map you are on, but not your progress in that map.
- Removed all A/B map scenarios. Where you save, is where you start
- You will now also get a mission to exit the area to help guide you when an area is complete
Finally, we want to add that we are actively working to add a better solution for a “Town Portal” system in future updates. Stay tuned!
General Improvements
As with any update, there are a number of various fixes throughout the game to smooth out. This update is not different. Below you will find a number of fixes within the update that did not exactly tie into any of the above larger improvements.
For a complete list of changes visit this thread