StrangeScaffold

Tutorial Time!! [Expansion #13]

Added 2020-12-16 08:13:23 +0000 UTC

WE'VE GOT AN INTRODUCTION/TUTORIAL SEQUENCE.

IT WAS ONLY HALF AS PAINFUL AS I EXPECTED IT TO BE, WE HOPE YOU LIKE IT, AND WE HOPE THAT YOU DIG KRISTA AS MUCH AS WE DO.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT.

Aside from that huge milestone, big victories were also won for project optimization and workflow, over the past couple weeks! It's been impossible to play Dog Airport Game in the editor for coming on half a year. Not only is the game filled with stuff, but a vast majority of that stuff was modularly generated.

Essentially, every store you saw in the game was one of many possible stores that could generate in that space, and we procedurally selected one 'child' object living inside of the template to fill that space at load-time. Our airports are living environments that evolve between visits. Apply that approach across a universe of airports filled with dozens of stores, each with several full-fledged stores living inside of them, and you have a matryoshka of pain that has gradually choked Unity within an inch of its life.

So, we fundamentally changed how stores are constructed in the game, using the magic of instantiation, which I still don't understand. What is undeniable are the results. Instead of 30 minutes to make a new build, it takes 5. Airport files - now filled with even more stuff than they were before - have been reduced in size by 2/3rds. We shaved 200 mb off the .zip download! Like, wow!!

I can now test what I'm making in-editor, before we bring it to you - which means we can make more dogs, faster, and better.

Also, there's a cat speakeasy hidden somewhere in the universe, called Squeakeasy, so that's nice.

Happy holidays, folks. <3

--Xalavier