This month, I finally tackled the performance issues which have been making the game run slower and slower over time. There's no other content in this release, but the performance improvements are so significant that I'd still recommend downloading this release, even if you normally only check out the new content each month! You'll find that the game is much easier to play now.
Solving the performance issues was a bit of an adventure on my end. My initial assumption was that the slowdown on lategame save files was caused by the code which double-checks to make sure that Chosen from previous versions were compatible with the current version (and because campaign mode always tracks all of the Chosen you've ever seen, keeping multiple lategame campaign mode saves would cause the number of Chosen who need to be checked to climb very quickly). In order to figure out which functions were consuming the most processing power, I've been training myself to use a tool called VisualVM. It turns out that the Chosen compatibility code wasn't the main issue, but I still ended up streamlining the code there somewhat, and the ability to use the new tool should be helpful in the future.
The real issue causing the slowdown was the number of times the game accesses the player's save file. The autosave feature would constantly access the save file, and there were several places where the game would needlessly read the save file even when not loading a save. This escaped notice during the testing of new features because I'd always be using a small save file to test those features. But when playing for fun, it's easy for the save files to reach 10+ MB, which is where the constant loading starts to become a noticeable nuisance.
In Version 1.03, I've refactored a bunch of code in order to avoid those unnecessary file loads, and I've also changed the autosave system so that it doesn't need to access the larger main save file. Even on a slower computer, this should go quickly enough that it can barely be noticed. The game will still hang a bit when loading the main save file (when starting the game, when opening the load menu after changing the save file, and during a few spots in Wisdom's and Reason's boss fights), but these events are rare enough that the game should be overall much faster to play.
In the coming month, I'll be refactoring Wisdom's and Reason's boss fight mechanics in order to make use of the autosave file so that they'll also run faster, and then I'll be starting on the game balance issues that I want to fix before we get to the alternate endings. A lot of lackluster items will be getting new gameplay features which should be pretty fun to play with!
Also, unrelated to the above, I've noticed that SubscribeStar has changed the way it displays notifications, and apparently I've missed some new subscribers. I'd like to extend a belated welcome to them now! I plan on releasing the first playable beta of Crooked Sword to subscribers a bit earlier than I do to the general public, so I hope you can look forward to that as well!
Click here to download. Mirror.
- Interface: When loading a save file, the "Back to day start" autosave feature (which previously couldn't be used at all) will now revert to that save file.
- Other: Significantly improved performance, especially with the autosave system.
- Other: The text for Reign's first appearance will now explicitly tell the player that it isn't expected to be able to fully defeat her in that loop.
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