Hello again!
Today we bring even more improvements: better memory efficiency (again), fixes to gamepad configurations and a much needed fix to how the combat camera behaved. Let's check them one by one.
We've discovered another problem with how we managed memory. This one comes from the old prototype code and, although we knew there was a potential issue there, we didn't realize how bad it was until we made some calculations on how much it was costing us. Turns out, in 64bit systems we were wasting from 500MB up to more than 1GB. In 32bit systems the improvements are a little less extreme, saving from 250MB to 700MB or so.
We've modified how that part of the game is managed and, as a result, we think the game might run in systems with as little as 2GB of RAM. We'll contact players who were having issues with such setups, so they can test the game now.
Together with the improvements brought from the previous update, we've reduced our memory budget in more than 1.5GB. That's hard to top.
On Linux 64bits, for example, the game used 1.5GB and about 2.5GB in Update #40 when loading the Factory and Sewers, respectively. Loading a similar level now, those numbers are at 700MB and 1.3GB. We've been unable to surpass 1.5GB in our test runs with this build.
On Windows 64bit, the gains are more noticeable, because the base usage is higher all around. From 1.7GB and 2.6GB, approximately, we've gone down to 1GB and 1.5GB.
So, if you had problems because we ran out of memory, please try the latest build. It might just work now.
We were aware that the combat camera had issues. Our attempts to make it predict the right direction to look at, taking into account movement, walls and nearby enemies, worked from a technical perspective, but failed gameplay-wise. It moved in what would seem the wrong direction when there were enemies close and made running away from them harder than it should.
So, after considering our options, we have decided to simply drop the predictive part of the camera. The combat camera is now a lot more stable and will not move on its own, except to slowly position itself behind the player after it moved for a while.
We feel gameplay is much smoother now and combat involves more enemy reading and less camera fighting.
Let us know how you think it works now.
Also, because of this change, the special cameras we used throughout the third level are now redundant. Those customized cameras were created to avoid the combat camera issues in that level, where they were particularly problematic.
Since those cameras were causing some hard to locate bugs and their reason to be was no longer valid, we've simply removed them. Except for a couple of special moments, the third level is managed with the default cameras, which should make things a lot easier.
After a long time, we have managed to acquire a couple of problematic gamepads, which we've used to, we hope, once and for all, resolve the issues we had with gamepads unknown to our default configurations.
We have now created a default configuration for unknown gamepdas, which should map the first 4 axis and 8 buttons in a way that should let you, at the very least, navigate the menus. In many cases, going into the configuration should not even be needed.
The other big issue was that, even if you managed to reach the controller configuration screen, configuring the axes did not work. We've reviewed the code used for that and fixed a couple of issues with axis mapping. Now, if the game detects the gamepad, it should be possible to configure it as you like.
Finally, in this release we have pretty much all languages translated. We might add one or two extra languages in the future, but the 7 languages we had promised to support are in: English, Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Italian and Russian. That's a huge percentage of the world's population, so we hope most of you, players, should be able to play Heart&Slash in your mother tongue.
We would like to thank all who have helped us with this huge undertaking. Friends, players and professional translators alike.
And, as usual, a barrage of bugs have been fixed. Let's see them: