Eat the Dungeon Discussion: Optimizing Load Times and File Size

It would be the stuffing levels as a whole. The characters would only gain weight

Bewildered Angel

I think if I were to remove the stuffing levels entirely I'd archive them somewhere publicly

Bewildered Angel

I'm confused, like the stuffing levels as a whole or something else?

darusianboi ^_^

I personally like the stuffing levels, but if they have to go to meet your file size requirements, then do what you need to do. That said, I hope you will consider preserving a version of the game (the current version I guess) that has the stuffing levels intact, so that those of us who like them can still play that version.

Catts

Cutting back like 50% is probably the best route

Bewildered Angel

I like this idea

Bewildered Angel

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't happy to not have to do the stuffing images, they're the most tedious part of the project by far, and weirdly time-consuming

Bewildered Angel

This might be the way to go about it

Bewildered Angel

Hmm tinypng actually gives much better results that I expected. This will be useful, thank you!

Bewildered Angel

Personally, I'm in complete opposition to the removal of the stuffing images. They're great and, in my opinion, an integral part of the game. An perfectly happy to wait as long as they require, both in terms of development and loading times. Perhaps fewer, but removing them entirely would be cutting most of the game's appeal. Also, a lot of the bellies look best when they're a combination of fat and stuffed, especially regarding the Thief, Witch and Spellblade. And seriously mate, consider taking a break for either a few weeks or months. No-one's complaining and you're the only one holding yourself to the schedule. Doesn't sound like it's exactly great for you.

Scryer

The project is yours, you should always do what you feel is best. Personally, I enjoy the stuffing images a lot, and I think they're a worthy sacrifice. But I also get it if they really drag things down for you. If you're getting burnt out with a project its always better to take a break or make a change, than lose your love for an idea.

Tiamary

Personally I'm way more into stuffing than weight gain, so this would significantly impact my enjoyment of the game, but I'm probably in the minority in that way. You gotta do what you gotta do to ensure the best result for the type of game you want to make.

Circlesquarer

I feel that, yes. This may be the best move for the game for the time being. Though, with the appeal that the nicety does seem to have with some people, it could be reimplemented in the future once everything else has been set in place. This is, of course, just my suggestion, and whatever is done will be done. After all, a game with multiple levels of fat and stuffing with images for each will inevitably lead to a larger load for the game to work with. Measures can be taken to reduce the space the images use though, as others have suggested.

NightlifeRaven

Hm, maybe only have stuffing levels for the first 1 or 2 weight levels? Or maybe just have a normal and stuffed variation as opposed to multiple stuffed levels?

snilloc422

The question is, is it the workload that's annoying or is it the fact that more pictures equals more data to load? Because if it's the second, we could help find a way to reduce the file sizes, like scaling them, other formats or even converting them to vector graphics.

Happensmaker

Can't you left at least some stuffing stages? We don't need 10, but 4-5 would be nice. What's the point in stuffing game without stuffing?

I'm usually the first to call for cutting features (and I think I've done so numerous times here), but I think the interplay between weight/stuffing is the core appeal of the game to me. Obviously you should follow your heart, but I'd absolutely prefer fewer characters/weight levels over the loss of stuffing as a visual mechanic. I'm sure you've done plenty already, but on an h-game I work on we've found https://tinypng.com gives us a pretty fantastic size reduction without too much loss of quality.

Kestrel