Early Access Development Update #21: 2025 / 03 / 01

[LoftyLoftyLoftyLoftyLofty]

In the zone

This week's update includes a bunch of performance improvements and engine changes to the way zones are handled, and misc other bugfixes.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3436784503
As usual, here's this week's list of changes, with more devlog details below:

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Content Changes:

• Added new segments to the Dump biome
  
• Updated water levels for several segments in the Dump biome

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Feature Changes:

• Added ANALYZEPHYSICS developer console command
  
• Serialization of several boolean flags to indicate zone types which are processed often
  
• Bullets now bool-check no-bullet zones
  
• BGCrawly enemy type now bool-checks BGCrawly blocker zones
  
• BGCrawly enemy type now bool-checks parallax zones
  
• Gems now bool-check windy zones
  
• Windy zones now properly cache their properties upon initialization
  
• Gems no longer check adjacent-layer T1 phys tiles; only current and stitched
  
• Gibs now bool-check windy zones
  
• Gems and gibs no longer string-split and deserialize zone data every frame
  
• GetCollatedZones now caches results after first call for a cave segment
  
• Enemies now bool-check vision blocker zones
  
• Enemies now bool-check water zones
  
• Line-of-sight checks have been optimized a bit
  
• Zones now adjust and retype themselves to set appropriate flags when loading from TMX
  
• Zones also retype when crunched
  
• Parallax tile zones are now bool-checked during level construction
  
• Water tile zones are now bool-checked during level construction
  
• Waterfall tile zones are now bool-checked during level construction
  
• No-Enemy zones are now bool-checked during level construction
  
• No-Clutter zones are now bool-checked during level construction
  
• No-Enemy zones are now bool-checked in scenarios that affect gunbuddy navigation
  
• Performance improvements for swivelcam zones
  
• Performance improvements for waterfall player interaction

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Bugfixes:

• Fixed length parameters for CH01-02's mission file
  
• T3 physics tiles no longer erroneously contain contiguous-but-not-contained T2 tiles
  
• T2 physics tiles no longer erroneously contain contiguous-but-not-contained T1 tiles
  
• Fixed some wstring stuff involving saving/loading that got missed in last week's build

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WIP:
This is the same as the last three weeks, but I'm making sure it's visible here so it's clear what we're (theoretically? ) prioritizing.

• Chapter 1 mission overhauls still WIP
  
• More stat tracking stuff still WIP
  
• Music stuff is WIP
  
• Parallax stuff for Dump biome structures is WIP

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This week's recap:

Zone handling:

The good news: Performance is better
The bad news: I'm still losing FPS with about 300 active gems onscreen

Now, realistically there shouldn't be several hundred gems active onscreen at the same time, but handling physics for 300 objects when there's not very many walls to check is an extremely reasonable request, so I have been chopping through the physics code for gems and removing or redoing unnecessary or inefficient parts.

I'm sure I've said this before but this is hopefully the last time I need to make any more performance improvements to the engine before release. Gems were fine before I added submersion and splashing and wind, or at least they seemed fine before those features were added, so once that's cleaned up hopefully I can get back to making the game instead of fixing the engine.

Gems and gibs use the same physics with minor modifications, so once gems are fixed those changes should also propagate to gib performance updates.

I'm also not entirely happy with the way wind affects gem velocity. The two don't really blend together that well in the current implementation so I think I will try to make it behave differently - the current implementation basically lerps from the gem's current velocity to the wind's desired velocity, but it doesn't look right.

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Strings and Wide Strings (part 2):

I missed a couple spots in last week's build involving wide-string conversions from regular-string targets for loading files. After a little bit more involved testing this seems to be working as intended now. Thank you for your assistance with this, Jargak!

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I was going to explain some stuff regarding Ring Fit and how that has influenced Amazoom, but all my time was spent doing zone stuff this week so I don't have a cute prototype or mockup to share yet. Anyway, now that different enemies can be weak to different types of weapons I'm considering adding colored variants of some enemies that have different weaknesses from their normal counterparts.

I feel that this would be a good way to make certain weapons the tool-of-choice for specific missions. We'll see if this ends up getting implemented or not- lots of fun ideas but we also have to finish the game.

As always, we're in the hangar if you need us and we'll be back next week with more updates!

[Jargak]

Originally posted by LoftyLoftyLoftyLoftyLofty:

I'm also not entirely happy with the way wind affects gem velocity. The two don't really blend together that well in the current implementation so I think I will try to make it behave differently - the current implementation basically lerps from the gem's current velocity to the wind's desired velocity, but it doesn't look right.

My only real point of contention regarding wind moving gems is when the latter get stuck on a slope without being able to go any further - they get jittery, which is slightly irritating to look at.

Anyway, now that different enemies can be weak to different types of weapons I'm considering adding colored variants of some enemies that have different weaknesses from their normal counterparts.

You already had recolours with different behaviours, but different resistances could make for a fun switch-up. Also gives more reason to swap weapons around. While we're at it, I noticed a small inconsistency: all the "variant" enemies use a hyphen to separate words in their name, with the exception of the wallcrab (which is "dumpwallcrab" and "wallcrab" respectively). Doubt it affects much, but I thought I'd bring it up since you're planning to add more of those names.

Thank you for your assistance with this, Jargak!

Ah, you shouldn't have - I'm just doing my part.

[LoftyLoftyLoftyLoftyLofty]

My only real point of contention regarding wind moving gems is when the latter get stuck on a slope without being able to go any further - they get jittery, which is slightly irritating to look at.

yeah same

While we're at it, I noticed a small inconsistency: all the "variant" enemies use a hyphen to separate words in their name, with the exception of the wallcrab (which is "dumpwallcrab" and "wallcrab" respectively). Doubt it affects much, but I thought I'd bring it up since you're planning to add more of those names.

the dev console doesn't support underscores at the moment so sometimes that's an issue with spawning them because i have to find their name and paste it into the terminal lol