Welcome, you amazing agricultural addicts!
I'm a day late with my weekly post, so feel free to leave angry kind and spiteful encouraging comments thoughts and prayers down below.
Also, be sure to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE and SMASH THAT BELL BUTTON to get notified every time I post a new video. Today's video is sponsored by SquareSpace. Fast and easy websites are only a few clicks away with -
... What? What are you even talking about? It's just the newsletter? Ohhhhhhhh... Right.
-shuffles papers around on the desk-
Ah... Developer notes. Here we go.
Development Updates
The new game mode is progressing nicely. To learn more about this new game mode, feel free to read the past newsletter here -
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1944240/announcements/detail/3193625777789613938
I've done a bunch of work on this new mode, and I'm pleased to share some screenshots of the development process. This way you can see that I'm *definitely not* a compulsive liar, stringing all of you along while I attempt to hide behind a veil of empty promises and comedic postings... Nope. That's definitely not who I am...
Here's me working to make the collision detection (hitboxes) for the grid -
In order to accommodate the new game-mode, I had to rework the Title Screen, so that players can choose to either play the classic "normal" version, or the new "survival" version -
Lastly, here I am play-testing the new game mode -
There's the proof that this is actually happening. Also, life is a simulation.
Bug-Fixing / Troubleshooting Updates
I'm still trying to isolate why grass isn't rendering appropriately on newer Intel GPUs. So far, this seems to be related to geometry functions associated with the shader that "draws" the grass texture in-game. Until I can resolve this issue, the game will continue to require a discrete GPU to properly function.
My apologies, friends... I'm trying my best to fix this, while maintaining the complete features of the current grass (wind physics, touch interaction, etc.). However, if I can't get the grass to function correctly in the short-term, I may create a less "feature-rich" grass substitute, specifically for integrated GPUs.
Leaderboard "Limit" Reminder
I see some of you "180-trickshot mageblood quad-kill uber-gamers" are quickly approaching the upper limits of the current Leaderboard, which remains at around the 550 hour mark. This is because Steam uses "integer" variables to store Leaderboard scores, and integers have a maximum value of 2,147,483,647.
I'm sure many of you may be wondering, "What happens when we cause an int-overflow on the Leaderboards?" The short answer is, "Me no know. Go for it."
Final Thoughts
That's all I have this week! Time for me to slink back into my cavern of complicated code, so that I can hopefully finish up this new game mode for you all. Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a wonderful week!
And as always, happy grass-touching, my friends! ːsteamhappyː