This Week in the Forest! #93 (Patreon)

YO FOLKS! Here's what we've been up to this week!

Starting with a Word from Vixel!

9/12 weekly update:

Hello all! <3 More Android issues popped up, so last week I worked on a few more fixes. Finally got a stable fix in place for Dpad responsiveness and a partial fix in place for overheating phones (all should run a bit cooler now, though some still heat up pretty good). The Dpad fix was difficult, I had to make a standalone Android app to help figure out what Unity does with multitouches.

The debug app shows each touch with a circular graphic, and the screen coordinates and ordering of each touch. By making a tiny debugging app, I could push updates to my phone faster than making new builds for the whole Forest of Love app.

If you look closely, one of the things making a fix difficult was the touch order changing when a finger is lifted - and when setting down the same finger, the new touch order is also unpredictable.

Unity provides a second way to track touches, but that way averages multiple fingers and puts the touch location between them - it's more useful for gesture controls.

The Dpad plugin we're using had a mixture of gesture touches when it should have been doing individual touches; and bugs trying to track individual touches. I ended up rewriting most of its core code. The Dpad has to track individual touches to allow players to tap a finger and slide it around the screen, but it doesn't need gesture input at all.

Back on desktop working in the Upgrade project, I got the graphics optimized in more environments and house interiors. Deep Woods and Plains still need my attention this week. Once graphics optimization is all done, there's a lot of broken scripts throughout the game, so to tackle those, I'm getting all the environments and examinable bits working correctly so Red can walk through all the doors and use the magnifying glass on stuff. Then I'll reenable the scripts that control the story progression and debug those in a second pass!

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On my side, I've been diving back into some Act 3 Content! The next part of the game has some interesting moments in it, which require some new assets, like the animation above!

I've also finally written out how I want this next lil chunk to shake out. Most of my writing process is working big picture first, then zooming in on each chunk to flesh it out. This keeps the whole picture in mind and usually results in a much better/cohesive experience. At least for me.

BUT, then I'll have some situations where a particular chunk is tripping me up for a bit. Sometimes for weeks, SOMETIMES MORE! This next chunk was one that I kept "simmering" for uh... too long lmao. But I finally figured out a solid direction for it :>!

SO YEAH~! Lots of writing and some asset creation this week for me!

OK THAS IT!

We'll see ya guys next week!