So here we go again, here you have a new update, but remember, as I said in the last post, these updates are going to "change" the game for the new coming version.
However, you are getting a big performance gap between this new version and the last one, and more performance is coming.
This update contains a bunch of techinical stuff that you might not understand (or you might do), but it should be doing a great job anyway.
Performance
Voxel system is being reworked and optimized. The game modes we have in mind require a constant, stable fps rate and our goal is to get the best we can.
Some UI and AI is being reworked too, and they will be improved a lot in the upcoming updates.
Content removed
Don't kill me yet! Wait!
I'm removing some content from the game for a simple reason. This content is causing a lot of performance spikes and as I said, our current main goal is to reach a stable performance rate. This content will be coming back as soon as I get it running smoothly, so don't worry!
Some bugs may appear
Big, huge changes are being done in One Last Day, so you might see some new bugs. Some are known, some are unknown yet, but the "known" ones aren't making the game unplayable.
Of course these will be solved in the upcoming updates until the new version comes.
Simplified patch notes
- Lightning bolt removed (it was using the old particle system and procedural mesh movement, performance expensive)
- Texture atlas references is now a separated class declared only once, instead for each chunk
- Texture atlas references are now a custom struct instead of Vector2 class
- Physx Unity system is being replaced by a custom voxel collision system, it might be buggy at the moment
- Custom collider systems now uses primitive colliders pools and voxel detection instead of mesh colliders
- Skeletons meshes removed, they were very expensive in performance and their material (item) will be added in other loot pools
- Each chunk is now updated (checking for changes and rebuild mesh) 1 time every X frames, instead of X times every 1 frame
- Particle raycasting (for raining and fire) optimized
- Grass and vegetation meshes are not generating mesh colliders anymore
- General code cleaning from the previously removed old networking system
- Texture atlas reduced from 4k to 2k, gaining a great performance in RAM and no loss on quality
- UI Event System optimized for the current UI system
- Enemy sound event system (sound detection) executed every X frames instead of X times every frame
- Sun flare removed (will be replaced with another effect)
- Added a probability spawn rate to clouds to reduce acid clouds
- Damage produced by acid cloud deactivated temporarily
- Updated to Unity 5.6.2 (added GPU instancing for some meshes / materials)
KNOWN BUGS / PROBLEMS
- Mesh colliders are removed from terrain and replaced with voxel detection + primitive colliders, beware of strange physics behaviours
- Some textures from some old models might be missing (these models are going to be replaced)
- Some animations might be broken, but still playable
I hope this update makes your game run better!
Upcoming updates
Since the last update (long ago), many things have passed.
As you now I was the only one keeping the development alive, but I have also bills to pay (they are growing up every year... sigh*).
Fortunately some else joined the Bloodwolf Studio team (IVM) and we finally decided to start the game from scratch using the same base.
All the art will be changed for a better game. Gameplay will be changed also (sandbox will be kept and improved, but it wont be the main game mode).
Upcoming updates
Since we are changing the whole game using the same base, I'm going to upload some updates that will improve performance of the current state of the game, for some users with an average mid-low computer this might mean a lot.
Remember, again, we are changing the game completely (I'm sure for a better way), and this means that some buggy or cost expensive content will be removed gradually in the next updates (not much), bringing you a stable world in performance.
So, what's coming in these updates?
Performance of the base game system. We'll begin with the current voxel system, that is being improved in performance a lot. It is important to keep a constant frame rate and reduce performance spikes to a minimum possible for the game modes that we are planning.
Render effects and postprocessing will be gradually changed into something closer to our final thoughts.
However new models, textures, gamemodes and mechanics will be part of a major update and wont be available until it's ready.
The next performance update should be coming really soon.
[Progress] Big changes
Hi! Long time without an update.
My life has become a bit more complicated and I have less time to develop the game, but it's still under development, of course!
And talking about development, I'm here to tell you about a few changes than may change the game how looks, feels and plays.
Traveling around the map
As you know, I have an infinite map on OLD working (not yet published, but working). This map is going to change a lot from the old system.
When I was testing this new infinite map, I found the map boring, nothing to do, no progress. Yes, the essence is still the same, survive, but I wanted more, a partial goal or objectives to be done.
So now we are talking about "pseudo-biomes". Don't expect biomes like other games, as instead, these zones will be some kind of map objective to be completed, for example a small town to be saved from some kind of enemy, an infected zone where you have to deactivate some kind of device, etc...
This way you will gain access to a new safe zone to build and manage as you want. You will be still able to build wherever you want, whatever you want, but inside these safe zones you can build some pre-made buildings with a special function (refinery, resources producement, etc...).
A better looking map
Since I can blend models and other stuff with the terrain using this new system, I'm improving stuff like adding minerals (not only textures, but with 3d models blended), better rocks to be collected on the surface, and maybe even different types of trees, grass and flowers, so you may expect big changes on how the game looks (or not so big)
So...
So the goal is to make an insteresting sandbox mode, with a good looking map and making the fact of exploration something that you will want to do, or the fact of staying at the same place and make your own town enjoyable, changing the way that the game is played right now and adding some task other than survive.
Sorry, no screenshots yet! I'm making some testing with all above and as soon I have something that looks really good I'll show you everything!
[Progress] Still on it!
Hi everyone, and Merry Christmas!
I'm here to tell you a little about the game and how is it going.
Don't worry, the big update is under development. Actually is more than an update since I'm doing the game from scratch involving code, and this game in code is huge, or it was since right now I'm optimizing a lot the game by removing a lot of useless code from the first alpha.
How is it going?
Steam multiplayer is working but is one of the hardest tasks to be done. The new procedural infinite map is working under the new system and now is time to add new stuff to the generation. Finally the new character system is also working on single player but is limited to movement (no weapons yet).
Everything is running smoother than ever now.
And what is coming with these new systems
It is still too soon to talk about this, but about the new character system is much more customizable now, for me as developer, and for you as player.
Talking about customization you will be able now to choose a skin colour for your character and equip a hat (head slot) and some cool glasses (face slot) at the same time, and of course, play it on third person if you want.
(Don't pay attention to the landscape, is under some testing)
Now under this customization there is more stuff. Your character can improve their stats nows (resistance, sprint speed, hunger gaining, etc...) and skills (crouch while jumping, sprint consuming life when your resistance is off, etc...), so yes! that level up thing is now used in the game and it's actually useful!
About infinite map you may now almost everything by now. Is generated "on the fly", so while you are playing the map is generating instead of being generated before you play the first time. Generation is much much faster than before. The number of possible cubes has been increased from 250 max. to infinite max. And much more, there are countless benefits with this new system.
And this was supposed to be a short update to let you know that I'm woking and doing the best I can to improve the game, but look, this is too long!
Enjoy these days if you celebrate something, and if not, enjoy them too! :)
[Progress] Just to keep you up to date
Hi everyone!
I'm making this little announcement to keep you all informed about the new systems coming to One Last Day.
Right now the game is being redone almost from scratch. A p2p system is working and now it's time to make the new character system.
Things that are being done right now
All the animations are being redone, adding more movement and living movements (but still cartoonish style) to the characters. Running, crouching, and a lot more animations will now move the entire body and mixed with other animations to make it look smoother.
And also the character control system is being redone from scratch. So far a lot of bugs have been solved, like camera problems, much more comfortable crouching system, better jumping... All of this will make your experience of exploring very different and pleasant.
And finally, the hard part, synchronize all of this over the network with the new system. Writing down a new whole networking system is not easy and it will take time, so when it's ready for open testing I'll create a new branch to the game for beta testing this system. Once again, it will take time, hopefully not too long.
So yes, that's all for now! The game is still going on its development getting the form and gameplay that we always wanted.
#UPDATE 0.28a - Red Moon Week and French!
Hi everyone!
The last night (at least it was night in Spain) I updated the game with a few bug fixing stuff but also activating the Red Moon Week event and adding another language, french! (thank you AwReel for the translation!)
Red Moon Week
Once every year, every pumpkin arise and come to live to get revenge. You have eaten their family, their friends, and now they will eat you. When the Red Moon comes the worst nightmares awake and you better hide or be ready to fight.
You may know this event from the last year. This week you will be able to create a new map, and when starting you will be asked if you want to convert that map into a Halloween event map. It wiill be turned into a normal one after the event is finished, so no worries!
On the event map you'll see different textures and a new enemy spawning, Pumpkin Zombie. They are quite stronger and dangerous than usual zombies, but their loot is always better with a chance of dropping a Pumpkin Helmet, that lights up an area around you!
French is now supported
Every french user should now thanks AwReel for translating the game into french, thank you very much! French is now supported and you can now play the game is this language by setting it in Steam, awesome!
Bug fixing
More bugs have been fixed, but remember, I'm making HUGE changes to the game, so you may see more bugs now than ever and I'll try to fix them all, but trust me, all this changes coming will be really worth.
And now go for it, hunt some pumpkins! Good luck!
[Progress] P2P and new character system
Hi everyone!
Since the last update I'm doing really big changes in One Last Day and I came to tell you a bit about this.
New multiplayer system
The good news.
Steam matchmaking and p2p system is working, now it's time to synchronize everything else. It will take a time to make all this system work with everything but it's very very easy now to join a game with friends and play together. No servers, no IPs configuration, no port forwading, just click on your friends chat and invite them / join them.
I'm glad to say that me and a community friend (AwReel) tested this system on a early build and it's working really good.
New character system on the work
The bad news, but not really bad.
This new character system is way better than the old one. There will be a lot of changes, including first person and third person camera, full "body" animations, and much more. But it will take a hopefully not too long time to finish this system, but don't worry, the game will be getting updates in the meanwhile.
Next update
Right now the game is not functional in my build because these big changes, but I'm aiming to update the game to activate the Red Moon Week only if possible. If you don't know what RMW is, there is a small Halloween event in OLD that changes the map aesthetic (only if you want) and spawns pumpkin zombies.
#UPDATE 0.27a - New stuff with a deep cleaning
Hi everyone!
I'm here again to bring you yet another update to keep improving.
The first thing and most notable, game now supports multiple languages.
Multi language support
Starting with spanish, OLD finally supports more language translations. Some members of our community asked me access to these files, so they can make their own translation, and this was a time ago.
So yes, anyone who's willing to do it, can now translate the whole game into him / her language!
Maybe you've heard from me that I want to get an official translation, but it's way expensive for my pocket right now. In the meanwhile, if a translation is made by the community, I'll add that language to the game and the name of the community / translator to the game also.
All text files can be found under your installation path, 90% of the cases found under this path
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\One Last Day\Text
Keep close attetion to a file named "README - Guideness to translate", very, very recommended to open these files with Notepad++.
Some UI is changed, updated
In order to allow text load more languages, I needed to update some UI and adapt it to allow more text inside it (or auto-adapt in most of cases).
You'll see some differences and improvements in the current UI system.
Big cleaning, optimization
Another thing is that I've cleaned A LOT of code, simplified some, and replaced a lot of asynchronous calls with a faster synchronous system.
Also the old networking system has been removed almost completely in preparation to the new Steam P2P system. This improves performance but can cause some bugs, some of them known.
And also I've removed A LOT of unused assets, obsolete shaders, and materials.
All of this should improve your game performance, but it's also good because this means that big things are coming to OLD!
Little additions
I've added quite new text to the game with new descriptions and changed some of them.
A new voxel damage system was added too, in preparation to the new multiplayer system and infinite map. This system is not finished, but it works very well.
Also a warning, reminder of the night is coming was added. It's an alarm sound with a notification to warn you about the night and encouraging to find a place to hide.
No screenshots in this update post! But I ensure you, the changes in the game in this update were one of the biggest ever made since today.
Hope you enjoy! As always, here you have the patch notes.
0.27 - Obsolete networking system (Unity's old system) has been removed from the game almost completely
- Started the implementation of the p2p Steam networking system on the new character system
- WARNING: since the network system is removed, some bugs and incosistences may appear, report them!
- WARNING: project cleaning phase 2 completed, report any missing textures!
- Huge code cleaning, game should run even smoother now
- A lot of asynchronous code has been replaced for a much faster, synchronous code, game should respond quite faster now
- Custom airplane orders are working again now
- New, more immersive voxel damage effect added. Instead of a cracking texture, you'll see the same cube moving (unfinished)
- Note: the new voxel damage system was done for the new upcoming infinte map, this system may causes some little bugs with the current map system
- Added a new text system to allow further languages support through Steam
- Text files can be found under "GameInstallationFolder/text/" now
- Spanish language is now officially supported supported (esES)
- A lot of UI were adjusted and modified to allow further languages
- Added a translation guideness to help you translate the game in case that you want to (under installation path > One Last Day > Text)
- Added a moving effect to Ricardo's memories images
- Dialog UI was adjusted to make text more visible
- All clothes received a description text and translation location, finally!
- Scavenger weapons received a description text and translation location too
- An alarm sound with a warning will pop up when night is close
- Firearms should be working again now
- Headshot experience bonus should be working correctly now
#UPDATE 0.26a - Fixing and optimizing a bit more
How's going today?
As I said, here's another update, but no big new features in this one, just fixes, a bit of optimization and some changes that you may like (or not! wuahaha)
Free scavenger weapons DLC for everyone!
Maybe you've seen that the game is under promotion, still going until it's out of alpha stage.
For purchasing the game you were getting two weapons with unique skins, the scavenger weapons. These weapons were granted before once you logged in into the game and checked that you own the game through internet, but since internet is no longer needed, how can we check it?
The answer is a free DLC for a limited time.
So if you don't have it already, keep an eye, it should be published very soon (in a few minutes / hours) and get it free! Don't worry, you have time.
Once installed, how to get them in the game?
When you install this DLC a new tab will appear inside the game (sandbox), with a "present" icon. Just click it and a reward window will pop up.
You can claim them as many times as you want, but you can't use them for crafting, no dropping, and no storing in any storage container. You can delete them and equip them with any problems, if you don't use them and need that space in your inventory, you can delete them and claim them again later!
Fixes, improvements, a bit of optimization
And more stuff!
Audio settings You can now tweak some audio values (music volume for main menu and general volume by now). I'll be adding more options in a future.
Optimization for the current map system As you know, map system will be completely changed but in the meanwhile I want this one to be working the best as I can do it work. So I've reduced the number of threads and calls to the map generation and deactivated the water rendering temporarily (the game has almost no water). This improve the performance a bit or a lot, depending on your computer.
Tweaks Sprint is not related to your FPS anymore. Before, the more FPS you had, the faster it was recovering, and that's not fair! Also, I've made it a bit harder. Sprints is recovering faster, but lasts less.
I've tweaked' a bit the mouse cursor too for those that have 2 monitors and the cursor were going out, this should fix it almost completely, test it and give me your feedback!
The new directory system is now fully implemented, and settings are saving / loading correctly now. You can delete the old "OLD" folder safely now!
And a bit of this, a bit of that... check the full patch notes for more information about this "mini" patch!
0.26a - WARNING: "scavenger axe and crossbow" is now a DLC (free) because the offline mode recently added
- Chunk generation optimized, only one call to the main thread is now required
- Water generation deactivated temporarily until it's fully implemented to improve performance
- Added a music manager (singleton), volume configuration and further music support is now possible
- Added a new tab to claim game rewards (early access axe, crossbow and future rewards)
- DLC items cannot be dropped, stored or used for crafting, just deleted, and they can be claimed as many times as you want
- Game cursor should be now locked when it's hidden and free when it's shown (to avoid problems with multiple screens)
- Solved a bug reducing to 0 the base stack of some items instead of the ones stored in your inventory
- The game will know when you map were generated and the "First generation window" won't show if you map were generated before
- Exit to main menu and close game inside the sandbox editor are now under the section Audio / * - Miscelanea options
- "Jump on head" system is now fixed and you need to actually jump over a zombie's head to make the kick work
- Sprint decay and recover is now fixed per time and not per frames per second (players with better fps were recovering way faster)
- Sprint adjusted to make the game just a bit harder. Keep your breath inside you just for in case you need it
- Zombies have reminded boxing. Fixed the bug making them peaceful beasts when you were quiet and still
- Bug fix, when trying to unequip a one handed weapon it remains equipped, but the slot was emptied
- Another bug fix, time won't reset to 9am everytime you enter your anymore, so time is saved!
- Input configuration is now saved under the new directory structure system
- Spawn configuration uses the new directory system too
- Hotkey bar is using also the new directory system, so you can delete the old directory safely now
- Main menu illumination tweaked
- Inventory is now safely saved each 10 seconds
- Project cleaning phase 1 completed
This update should be running right now. Free DLC should be coming in a few minutes / hours too, remember to get it!
#UPDATE 0.25a - A new beginning
A new beginning! A perfect title for this update.
As you may know, big changes are coming to One Last Day, starting to add them gradually today.
Offline mode
You don't need internet connection anymore in order to play.
This means also that your characters right now are unaccesible, you can create new ones while I create a platform to download your old ones.
Also, your maps may be lost. If you had a great map that you don't wanna lose you can still do this. 1- Start the game and create a new map, so the new folder structure will be automatically created. Close the game.
2- Go to Documents > My Games > OLD (Windows) or Users > "Your name" > OLD (Mac) 3- Copy the folder that match your desired map name.
4- Paste this folder into Documents > My Games > One Last Day > Maps (Windows) or Users > "Your name" > One Last Day > Maps (Mac)
I can't recommend doing this because it may cause loading problems and folder inconsistencies, but if you are sure of yourself, keep going!
You can delete the old OLD folder, but I recommend keeping it until the next update at least.
New main menu
Since things are going to change we need a more elegant and simple menu.
Multiplayer and editor mode were almost unused for the moment, so they are deactivated temporarily. As you may know, multiplayer will be integrated with Steam so you won't need to create a server or do port forwarding anymore in a future.
I have also changed some distribution, fixed some little bugs and added a credits section.
Oh, and added music. This music may be just a placeholder if people don't like it. I think it's good anyway, I hope you like it too.
Upcoming story mode
Story mode is being made for two main reasons. There is a story behind the game, all the time it was there, unexplained, and I think it's worth to explain.
The second reason is that the new infinite map will add also NPC interactions, so this will help to make the new dialog system already implemented and some better animations that can be reused (talking, sleeping, emotions, etc...)
Right now you only can speak with one of the three main characters (Ricardo) and he will tell you a little bit about him. After this introduction the story mode won't start yet, until the first chapter is finished.
What's next?
First you can expect some hot fixes of this update as always, I've tested it but I'm sure that I left something unchecked ːsteamfacepalmː
After this update you can expect a cleaning update for 0.26a. This means no new features, just a clean of unused assets, unused code, bug fix and so.
This can improve the performance on some computers and since the game is going to get big changes, I think it's time.
Patch notes
0.25a
- Offline mode added, you don't need to login or store data online
- Character data is now saved under folders and not online anymore
- Login menu is no longer needed and has been removed
- Editor mode is disabled temporarily
- You can now rotate your character in selection screen again
- You can now rotate your character in editor screen again
- New main menu
- Added a new dialog system to the game (for future additions)
- First character introduction added
- New Steam security added, you need to run Steam in order to play
- New folder organization when saving and loading from hard disk
- Main menu music added (maybe a placeholder)
- Removed multiplayer menu in order to preparation for Steam multiplayer implementation
- Started the development of Character system 2.0, added to the main menu
- News menu removed, still trying to figure how to add it without making the menu look ugly
This update should be uploaded and ready right now, I hope you like the first taste of these upcoming changes.
