Wow, what a week it’s been. I have a number of things to go over, but why don’t we start with the progress of the game testing.

So far I have a little over 74 hours of game play. I am somewhere in the middle of the 6th year. I am getting pretty close to the end of the game which is pretty exciting.

As you can see above, the 17 year old illustration is on display. I have now showcased all of the age related illustrations. But there are an additional 9 other illustrations to be unlocked! I hope people will enjoy these visuals once the game is released.

I have posted a video showcasing a bit of the last quest I completed. It is a simple quest but it shows off the progress I’ve made so far.

I’ve recently made a few changes to the stage related icons. I’ve created a new group of blue enemies as quest enemies. (I’ve basically changed specific red enemies to blue) I felt I needed to make this distinction between the red enemies so the player has the choice of focusing only on the quest. Also, I’ve adjusted the color of “!” (Event) and “?” (Random Treasure) icons so they look more distinct from the “Q” icon (Quest) while you explore the map. You can see the changes in the video above and the image below.

In one of my previous post, I mentioned my concern with load times. I felt they were far too long, especially the time it took to load up a save file. Originally, I put everything into a single scene (the same file) because I never considered a 2d game being demanding enough to warrant loading.

Fast forward a few years and now I was dealing with over a minute of wait time for starting and loading the game every time I tested it in the editor. This was a problem, but I wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

After doing some research, I realized putting everything into a single scene was very dumb of me. (there’s no better way to put it) So as a hail merry solution, I put the start menu into it’s own scene. Allowing the game to start up within seconds, instead of a minute.

This has saved me so much time, but I was still concerned about the time it took to start up a new game and load up a save file. In the editor, it takes my machine 1 minute to load, while it takes the game build 15 seconds to load. I have a pretty powerful pc, so this amount of time is not ideal for a 2d game!

After doing some testing, I realized a particular portion of the game was the cause of a great deal of data bloat. Each of the maps in the game added a noticeable effect to the load time and there are over 50 of them! But the thing about the maps is, they’re pretty much separate from the rest of the game. Meaning, they were prime candidates to being thrown into their own scenes.

I wish to take this time to explain how scenes in the Unity engine work. Scenes are files that hold all of the game’s assets that are placed into them. Everything you see in the first screenshot above (the one showing the daughter) is all in the same scene. When the engine loads a scene, it loads everything inside that scene into system memory. I mean, EVERYTHING. Even the stuff you can’t see because they are hidden.

I had everything, including all of the maps, placed into one scene. Unity was loading each map, even though those maps weren’t being used, into memory, taking up space and causing the scene to load very slow. Once I realized what was the real problem of load times, I had to spring into action.

I took every map and place them into their own scene. This was new territory for me. I spent years only working in one scene, so I was worried making such a drastic change this late in the game’s development would introduce serious problems.

Nope! Everything went great. Now, instead of every map sitting in the main scene, taking up space, I load the scene from the map I need and unload it when I don’t need it.

As you can imagine, load times have improved considerably. Now I can get into and out of the game in seconds. (in the editor) Loading a save file or starting a new game takes 4-5 seconds now. (again, in the editor) In the game build, it takes even less time. Also, there is a small load time added when going to maps, but it’s not very noticeable. (at least on my machine)

There are other optimizations I would like to make in the future but it will require more thinking and tinkering. I want to get the load times down to zero (if possible) for people on mid grade PCs. This is something I will revisit later on.

On another note, (this is a very long post, my apologies) I had a bit of a scare earlier this week. Steam requires you to set a release date for your project. At the time I was still unsure about the release date, so I just set a date far into the future. They mention once the game reaches 2 weeks before release, you can no longer change the date.

Last week, this thought popped into my head and I realized, I better check just to be sure. Low and behold, I am one day past that window and I was unable to change the release date.

Uh-oh…..

Does this mean Guardian’s Guide is about to be released???

Nah, there isn’t even a build uploaded on steam yet. lol I was able to contact support and managed to get the date changed. But this little scare solidified some things.

One, I have now decided on an official release date. I’ll probably let you guys know in a few weeks. Two, the date will be later than promised. This is because of steams current holiday situation. They recommend I not release during special sales events, so my game won’t lose “new release” visibility.

The good news is, this extra time will allow me to further refine the game. Plus, I can have some time to enjoy the holidays myself.

I’ll probably make a video going over this in the not so distant future, as for now, I want to finish testing this game before the end of the month so I can reach 80% status.

After that I have a number of things to fix and finalize before release. I have so much to do even though I’m this close. The ride never ends folks. I’ll talk to you again next week.