Good day, fellow Meeps! I've been spending a lot of time on optimization recently, and wanted to mention a few improvements that will be included in the next update:

• I'm now emitting all "dust" and "water spray" visuals from a single pair of particle systems, changing its parameters before emitting specific particles, where previously I placed a copy of the system at each point where dust / spray needed to be visualized, and then destroyed the system to get rid of the visuals. The central particle systems now emits particles for all locations specified in a dynamic list. Rain, clouds and snow emission have been working like this for a while.
• Finding locations for Fracture Springs when Fault Lines erupt now runs on one of the parallel threads, getting rid of the most notable (and very noticeable) temporary stuttering in frame rate when Fault Lines erupt.
• Some "take small steps over time until all is done" changes are now made instantaneously if the Fault Line isn't explored by the player (and thus not visible), further reducing frame rate stuttering.
• I've improved memory management by implementing list pools across all threads to reduce the strain put on garbage collection, reducing temporary frame rate drops.
• I've reduced "Set Pass Calls" and "Batches" to reduce the amount of communication required between CPU and GPU.
• I've reduced excessive triangles in the Food Ball and Snow Comet models.

Along with the improved triangulation (see previous post), the next update will also include huge improvements in the terrain texture, which I have completely revisited (with only a few left to go). Here's an example of what the game currently looks like. Although the new triangulation requires more GPU resources (I've always been CPU bound on my side anyway), the texture improvement is achieved with no additional strain on the CPU or GPU.
I'm very excited to release this update, but there are a few loose ends to tie up before we can go live. Please stay tuned! De Chelonian Mobile Gideon

[ 2023-06-16 12:00:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Please … help us save our Turtle … it means the World to us!

Gather Some Meeps and Develop a Realm

Is there anything more exhilarating than your first move on a fresh map? A small band of Meeps have gathered together with enough supplies to construct a basic resource gathering outpost. Expand their skills, improve their efficiency and guide them towards guilds, societies and more advanced structures. They, and their children, are going to need these to have a fighting chance of saving their Turtle.

Explore, Examine and Cooperate

Find and cooperate with other bands of Meeps scattered on the map. Work with the environment to improve negative situations and affect progress without destruction. Learn about your world and push back the boundaries of physics in order to advance.

Save Your Turtle, Save Your World

Space can be a harsh and unforgiving place, especially to an enormous Turtle. Like the Meeps, their World Turtle also needs your guidance to stay safe and nurtured. And while you’re at it, maybe you can save some others as well…

Background and Vision

I am a solo Indie developer. I joined the Game Dev party quite late in life, and got my first glimpse of Unity almost exactly 2 years before making the first demo of World Turtles, my very first game, available. I'm amazed at the progress I’d been able to make during these two years and owe a great deal of gratitude to various tutorial channels, plug-ins and artists whom I leaned on during the development. None more than Catlike Coding, whose brilliant Hex Map tutorial series kickstarted this entire endeavour.

I have spent a lot of time polishing the task queueing and progressive construction systems, utilising different threads, UI and more and I feel the basic foundation and technical mechanics of the game is ripe for branching off into various promising directions. The free demo is a small vertical slice designed to exhibit the commitment I have to developing a good-quality game and hopefully pique some interest.

I have a good idea of the general direction I want World Turtles to head in, but there’s a myriad of possibilities available for the execution. For now, I’m focusing on a single-player sandbox-type environment. This will hopefully be followed by a small campaign and a map editor. Having some sort of multiplayer capability would also be wonderful, but there’s a lot to be done before then.

I would love developing World Turtles further alongside a group of enthusiastic real-world Meeps. Please, join me and be a part of the journey!