We would like to share some partial progress from the upcoming Update 1.1, since it has gathered an immense amount of interest, which we're sincerely grateful for as the whole team! To answer the first unasked (yet) question, the release date of the update is still unknown, but we're constantly working on it. Starting with this devlog, we want to keep you guys better informed about what's happening behind the scenes on a more regular basis. 😅
The update will not provide just the promised 2 new maps. It will come with lots of quality-of-life features, interface improvements, performance optimizations and more! The current live version of Leaf it Alone is pretty stable, with just occasional hiccups, but can still be a struggle for lower-end setups. That's also an area, that we're taking a look into.
Since we know you're eager to see the new maps, here's a little sneak peek about one of them. We don't want to spoil everything just yet, but suggestions and guesses are more than welcome in the comments!
It's one of the features that were supposed to be there in the 1.0 version of Leaf it Alone, but we started to run out of time before the planned mid-autumn game release. It's long overdue, and we're excited to finally get it in your hands!
Another such feature is an in-game timer. This will be disabled by default in the settings, since the game's main theme is still being relaxing. Although, it will be there for those who enjoy going faster and faster, yet are not as invested to use LiveSplit, that is already supported by the game.
The map is getting some well-deserved attention too! New markers have been added for leaf inlets and trash bins, so navigating each area should feel more intuitive and make planning where to spend your money a lot more thoughtful. On top of that, once you've collected all the leaves in an area, it will now be colored on the map, making it much easier to track your progress at a glance! 😎
We have figured out ways to improve the framerate without compromising the quality of the leaf physics, which is the main performance bottleneck for basically everyone. The results are already very promising, although we're not finished optimizing it just yet.
What's done so far impacts the "passive" framerate by limiting the number of leaves that are considered for an update at a given frame, based on their distance to the player, as well as any other objects that can interact with leaves (leaf bags, balls and all the doors).
Performance tests were conducted on a few testing configurations. The expected outcome is that the higher the rendered resolution is, the lower the framerate increase should be seen. Here's a rough comparison of what the current efforts for the average framerate have resulted in.
Further planned improvements are dedicated to direct interactions, especially with lots of insanely clumped leaf piles, which if turn out as good as expected, will seriously help with the framerate altogether when playing.
These are just a few highlights of what's coming in the upcoming Update 1.1! We're happy to share this with you guys and we would like to invite you along with us on this small development journey. See you all again in June! 😊