Pirate Island Mini Golf VR
Framerate Improvements + Pirate Testing
Significant overhaul of the collision detection systems to reduce latency, removed of some resource-intensive components unrelating to game play, and reduction of some texture map sizes were all implemented to improve overall frame rate. On average, framerate now operates at 45-60 fps (depending on resources displayed on screen). I am aware of a momentary 'blip' where frame rate drops significantly for a singular frame every 5~10 minutes. I am investigating the reasons why.
The Scallywags Update
For the last five months, I've been working on a number of features for Pirate Island Mini Golf, the most significant of which is adding the often-requested feature: Multi-Player.
Now up to four players can play through one of the four courses, with voice chat support via Steam Voice. The voice chat is disabled by default, but players can turn it on in their house before the round starts.
There have also been a number of cosmetic changes, improvements to the overall physics of the game, and some tweaks to the soundtrack and effects.
As we are still in Early Access, there may still be unexpected issues that might arise. I am creating a new thread in the community specifically for issues encountered either via single player or multiplayer sessions as a result of the Scallywags update. Let me know if you run into any problems there so I can investigate further.
I will continue working on this project in the coming months. There are still a handful of features I would like to implement and improve upon. However, I am pretty happy with how the game play flows and the environment itself.
So don't stand on the edge of the plank with a sword in your back! Come on down to the Island and play a couple rounds!
Localization and minor bug fixes
Many things took place with development over the last several days, and I feel confident to move the testing branch back over to the main branch and rolling it out to all players.
Minor adjustments are pending for localization. These are mostly correcting the orientation, as some translated words will cut off. Still, the logic otherwise presents the menu texts as they should be, so I'm confident to mark the initial testing as complete and merge it to the main chain, with a disclaimer that I will correct the final orientation issues by next patch.
Two issues that arose from playing through an already-completed game a second time were resolved, along with friction-based problems with specific obstacles. Also, the archway obstacle on courses was changed to not be quite as long of a tunnel (decreasing the odds the ball would get stuck halfway through and become troublesome to hit again). I took a second pass at file sizes for audio and textures resulting in an overall improvement of load times.
With regards to the handful of locations where the player will teleport down approximately one foot lower than expected, I've isolated the issue to two potential causes. Testing is underway to resolve permanently.
I am actively investigating locomotion via touch-pad (instead of teleporting), and if it's not included with my next patch, it will at least be in a testing branch. My main problem with this (beyond motion sickness) is that a sensible character controller should balk at going upwards at greater than a 45 degree angle. There are a couple ladders in the game world and I would prefer to not 'warp' the player from the bottom to the top, but I also don't want to give free license to climb up 90 degree cliff faces or the sides of buildings. I'm narrowing down the options to try to figure out the best solution.
Once locomotion logic is completed, I am then going to focus on setting up a render pipeline to improve overall graphics, which will be the center of my work for the next two to three weeks (with updates as code improvements warrant).
There's more to come! Hope you're all enjoying your time on the island!
Localization and Optimization testing
I have created a new beta branch (named "testingbranch"), and I have been working with the following features within this branch:
Localization:
I have set up the menus for the following additional languages: Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian. These translations are 'rough around the edges' as some of the translations are longer than their associated button, and Google translate didn't quite know what to make of specific terms, but these two things should be ironed out by the next patch. Naturally, I wouldn't mind if any native speakers would fire me an e-mail with the bits that didn't quite come across correctly.
Optimization:
The first steps towards a smoother load time and play are reducing some specific file sizes. I have adjusted some of the sound sets and music, and a couple of the larger texture maps are getting an overhaul. I'm investigating other areas to work with the game as it stands, before implementing a full render pipeline.
If you would like to try these changes, you can subscribe to the 'testingbranch' as a beta build. Once I've finalized these components, I will be combining it with the main branch.
Thanks for reading! More updates to come!