End of June 2021 Update (Patreon)

Hi y’all,

This is the month we accepted the truth, that we basically had to hunker down and just port a bunch more code to work with our networking system. Needless to say, it’s better to start a game with networking in mind, rather than converting a local game to a networked game after the fact. But online networking opens up so many doors…

Online Networking

And so it continues.

We’ve implemented all the major features of the game (giant, warrior, shields, killzone, dodging, hands, rockets, bombs, rocket riding, and so on). Now there still remains a lot of quality-of-life features to implement, all the little things that balance the game and make it more playable. But at a glance, the networked version of Davigo looks very similar to the original (see below). We are getting closer!

Switching between our original Alpha scene and the new networked scene.

https://gfycat.com/impracticalfarawayfurseal

Now, it’s critical for us that we get to see how the networking performs under relatively poor conditions, so we’ve prioritized testing with people across the continent with a wide range of internet setups. Testing like this helps give us confidence that efforts we’ve put into networking will be worthwhile. As of today, we’ve done about 15 tests total with people as far away as Florida (from Vancouver, that’s about as far away as we can get). We expect to run at least 15 more tests.

If you’re interested in being part of the testing process, please fill out this form: Sign up here.

If nothing goes wrong, the first open experiment for online networking would be as a prototype build. Here’s a couple clips of Davigo running over the network:

https://gfycat.com/elementarycreativeblacklemur

https://gfycat.com/warmheartedscalyaphid

Quest

We’ve hit 72 frames per second! This is Oculus’ performance requirement for their store games. There’s a few dips here and there but we haven’t had to spend much time optimizing the visuals, so there is still room for improvement!

https://twitter.com/DavigoGame/status/1403019122300973058

Most of our networking testing has been on the Quest, too!

Odds and Ends

We were nominated! Davigo was selected as one of 25 nominees at the A MAZE Fest, which is a Berlin-based indie game festival with some very unique titles and even more unique award names, such as “Most Amazing Award” and “Human Human Machine Award.” Fingers-crossed!  

Also, one Davifan posted on iFunny.com, which is a site we were not familiar with. However, it got some major attention there, and we are very thankful for it! https://ifunny.co/video/Sl38GOsg8?s=cl

That’s it! Maybe it's rather a dry update, since we’ve had our heads-down just coding the last month.

Stay tuned!
-Davidevs