Oh! I am a fool: Early on I added the flag animation frames to the goblin towers, assuming empty space/ pixel art size didn’t matter, but i guess that’s what the game crashing giant texture file is! It’s good to learn lol #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Achievements have turned out to be much more of a nightmare than expected: but I’ve finally got godot to talk to steam: Should be fine, but achievements aren’t activated prerelease so there’s no way to know for sure yet. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Steamdeck test, performance is better than ever! No issues, with weather and all enemies on! There’s a slight frame slow down when you fire a charged multishot, but that’s kinda nice and adds juice so might just leave it #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Commons, uncommons, and a few of the set items! Checking for any clipping, it looks… mostly fine. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeatho

I think I found the problem!!!! It didn’t like nestled particle effects, even when not emitting; but turning them invisible and having them turn on when on screen seems to have fixed it. Look how small that spike is now! #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Checking performance; I think I can solve that load in spike… I fixed the error messages from the tilesets. No performance improvement, but it is nice to get rid of those error messages that were driving me crazy. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

So I had the quick idea to just mirror the portrait art to the equipped armour art, which made this INFINITELY easier to program than I was worried about! Commons done, working on art for uncommons next. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Ok, I’m going to bite the bullet and do it: Character portraits for the pause menu with weapons and armour that change. It’ll help draw more attention to the inventory system. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Testing the persistant world: If the players leave enemy range, they march towards the town. Rescued npcs will also go to town to help defend. Performance feels fantastic! Doing final tests and reuploading the demo. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

It’s running so well now, and I have so much more wiggle room if I want to add any more unplanned energy intensive things later. It thinks there are errors in the tilesets, but I solved those in a round about way early on. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Updated Godot and it has informed me of bugs that existed but for some reason weren’t problems earlier? This is good; it should solve the mysterious loading problem, and I’ve got the spike below 400! It runs so smooth now! #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Achievements! Once I get this done, I can go back and add them to Roid Chimp. It was nowhere near as difficult as I was worried about. Knock on wood until after testing of course. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

…And the other gate. This took so long! I didn’t get quite the detail I wanted into the final doors’ relief sculptures, but it “feels” the way I want it to, so it’s fine. It’s all practice, I’ll get better eventually. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeathh

I’m procrastinating on some backend stuff, but I’ve put so much time into this animation. I will end up using it, so it all feels productive. Eventually. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

In process! I’m going to have an RE type “collect the pieces of the relief sculpture” to unlock this in stages, which will be a portal to…. Somewhere. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Making a boss ghost! I can really go to town on the death animation since there will only one on screen at a time, but the rest of the movement animations are a bit of a nightmare at this scale. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Sorting out achievements! I think it’s a lot easier than I’ve been dreading. I hate backend stuff so much, I’m always worried I’m going to break something. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

A little behind the scenes look at how I (dis)organise my sprites as I work on them. I really need to start labeling all my files properly. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Testing on the steamdeck and this $300 laptop from 2018. It runs perfect on both now! I think I’m happy with performance now, going to focus on maintaining while expanding next. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

UI updates are a go! I also added little “!”s to draw attention to the to do/ skills menu. Players hate reading lol #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Adding a splash of colour to the inventory UI! It helps emphasise the diablo style item types, and also colour is pretty and makes unlocking things more exciting. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeathm

Found more places to fix optimisation! I think I can get that load in spike down another ~20%! Also decided to pause the game while in the pause menu; not having that happen was needlessly stressing out the player. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Bear! #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Added UI bars for each farm by the minimap so the player can track when they provide more resources in order to draw more attention to when they can build. Also little icons appear when you have enough to build each tower. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Death animations for the ghoul! I THINK I only need 2-3 per enemy, rather than 5 for each direction. Considering the number of enemies, it should add up! #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Huzzah! The load-in optimisation has also improved general performance! Later game “full zombies” is getting no noticeable frame drops! #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

I added the inventory to the overworld menu, mainly to emphasise that it 1) exists and 2) carries over between rounds/ deaths. I think it also helps the player to understand what’s currently selected. #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Bird! #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

Success! Performance is great now, even with processing heavy triggers (eg all items from across the map flying towards the player here) I’ve figured out how to break up the load in assets, so finishing that up today! #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath

The rocks optimisation helped, and the trees and torches seems to have solved everything else! No more massive spike on start! I don’t like how it’s all zoomed out though, I feel like it’s hiding things from me? #gamedev #pixelart #solodev #indiedev #indiegame #godot #TheUniverseOfDeath