And finally the weekly! Kept you waiting, huh?
Over the past 2 weeks we got lots of stuff done, from internal changes in the code, over new graphics, to a change in our workflow! And now we’re gonna share all of it with you.
Memory
When we were talking about the future scope of CrossCode we stumbled across a problem that would occur with the game. Until now we always simply loaded any assets as required and kept them in memory… forever. When you think about a large RPG with lots of graphics and music/sound, we get to large amounts of data quickly. Especially if we intend to port our game to systems with small memory, we can’t afford to keep everything in memory. And since we don’t need all assets all the time, we created a system that allows us to unload assets. This might seem to you like only a small change but it’s actually a big problem in programming in general. Even when using JavaScript (think of games like The Last of Us which run these amazing graphics and animations on just 256 MB RAM)! We now don’t need to worry about memory because the system makes sure that unneeded resources will be unloaded after a certain time of not using them.
Menu
We just finished another batch of little interface elements that are required for different sub-menus. Because of some heavy workload, we had a bit of a slowdown here but we still have our milestone for October and it includes (at least partially) creating the menu. So more updates will come over the weeks and surely some screens as well!
Graphics
Like always we are working on more details for the cargo ship. Tina started working on the bridge of the ship. Want to take a peek at it? Well we have a little Teaser for you right here:
More in the next weeks! Teekuh worked on small details like chairs, tables and the like (used for the cabins on the ship).
Workflow & Concept
We are still a young group of more or less random people, trying to make what we love (It’s games in case you wonder!). So after we had several issues with communicating graphic requirements, we realized something: We can’t start thinking about graphics when creating sprites. We always planned ahead with descriptions, but never had a clear vision for the visuals. Thus, we need concept art for the sprite artist to give them a better picture of the world we want to build. We think that this is an important step and it will help us to increase the quality of the game. You already saw concept art of the characters and maybe we will release some concept art of the world soon too!
This is all for this weekly. Now have a good day and oh! if you haven’t played our little side-project yet, go ahead and give it try! Just click on the following link:
Ninja Hobo Connoisseur
Until then!
Thanks for the update