Welcome back! Time for an update!

Graphical and Audio updates:

There hasn’t been much of new developments, as the works is mostly done under the hood. But new faces have been loaded and replaced the old ones. Here’s a preview in battle:

In addition, I’ve replaced some of the audio files for the swords and katanas to add oomph on the attacks.

Under the hood changes:

While doing some polishing, improving the efficiency is important. One of the things I did, is to cut down the number of unnecessary events. Since events need to run checks if it is time to run, it can waste processing power thus can slow down the game (especially on low end computers). To achieve better performance on exploration, is to use region triggered event, rather than having three or more events doing the same thing. Let’s take a look at an example:

See the three pirates here? These three do the same thing: Trigger a battle, remove the pirates. While it is fine on some situations, but if it was something long (say, a long opening where it takes you to a different map) this is a wasted code (and this can kill performance). Taking a look on the picture again, the empty darker square is a region-triggered event, where it only runs if you enter on a specific region. This is a much more efficient, since it needs much less events that are identical (as I can specify the specific region rather than spamming the same event code on a specific tile) and it takes up less space on the map. So, I can place more NPCs while having the same performance. It doesn’t give a huge boost (since it depends on a lot of things) but at least it’s an improvement.

Speaking of wasted performance, the backup system receives a File Watcher component, a .NET/Win32 component used to monitor folders and files for specific criteria (such as creating and deleting files). Why would I use that? The current versions of Northbridge will always backup your save files, even when you did not save. Not only it wastes space, but it can also crash the launcher if it happens that the game closes and there is an identical folder. With the File Watcher, it’s much easier to check if there was a change which results in more secure and efficient system.

Lastly, the Xbox 360 Controller support is almost ready for public testing. I’ve almost completed the control scheme for the game, but there is a small issue with the movement. You can only use the analog stick in order to move around (which can be inconvenient for some). I’ll see if I can fix it up.

That is all for now. See you on the next post.