Development Update July 2023
Hello everyone!
Time for another dose of Mall Craze updates! Before we start, thanks to everyone who tried the new Demo or wishlisted the game! We have a lot of new folks around here, either from the OTK Games Expo or the Next Fest. Welcome onboard!
Important message about 0.2.7 update (released today - July 13, 2023) This update is no longer compatible with old saves. During Early Access, this might happen as well as some new features may require a substantial restructuralization of save data. Although I'll try my best to minimize the frequency of it as much as possible.
The number of people that tried the new Demo was huge during the Next Fest and I've received a lot of feedback from you!
[h2]Tutorial[/h2]
I've received a lot of feedback from you about the current state of the tutorial. At this moment, It is more of a documentation, rather than an interactive guide. It will stay that way even during the initial phase of Early Access. The reason being that the game changes constantly, and I'm adding or changing things daily. That would make keeping a well polished interactive tutorial up to date costly in terms of time. Time that I would much rather spend on adding content and features at the moment.
[h2]Empty map[/h2]
When you launch the game, you are greeted with a beautiful landscape full of .. nothing? This will change before Early Access and there will be some starting malls that you will be able to tinker with :)
Even though last month was pretty hectic (OTK, Next Fest), it wasn't lacking in terms of development. Quite the opposite actually, as I was trying to fix and add stuff as much as possible. You may have already noticed some changes on your own or you've read them in the Patch Notes.
Let's now go through them in more detail!
[h2]Changing designs during Build mode[/h2]
By far the biggest limitation of the Building and Customization process was the fact that you couldn't change the design of an object while building it. The only way to change it was in the Material Designer after you've build it. This would not be that big of an issue for objects that are build in relatively small quantities. The main issue however was building, customizing, and deleting floor.
You only had 2 options - Paint floor tiles one-by-one, or use Bucket Paint to paint the whole mall or shop floor. And even worse part was deleting the floor, where the only option was to delete it one-by-one (not a particularly funny experience when you accidentally build a 100x100 sized floor).
The solution was rather simple - allow Material Designer for ghost objects (objects that show you where a particular object will be placed). With that also came a new set of buttons that allow for an easy way of saving and loading these designs.
[h2]Bulldozer Tool[/h2]
We have a Customization part solved, but what about the delete issue? Remember, we still have to delete every single object manually one-by-one. Many games offer an area-delete tool for this purpose. Let's add one into Mall Craze as well!
Currently found in the bottom-right corner is the bulldozer tool that allows you to easily delete normal objects, floor, and products. All these 3 options can be separately toggled on/off, so if you only want to delete floor, or you only want to delete decoration objects, you can!
Not everything can be Bulldozed like this however - Mall and Shop area are still deleted inside the Construction and Shop Construction menus. This was a deliberate decision, as it would be easy to accidentally delete a shop.
[h2]3D TEXT[/h2]
A feature that was present in the old demo but was not ready for the Next Fest is now back in the game in it's improved form!
Currently, only Entrances hold a 3D text component, but in the future, I would like to add it into multiple objects, and also as it's own separate object.
So what can you customize for the text?
[h2]Visual Improvements[/h2]
[h3]Object Animations[/h3]
Some actions like build, paint, move, or delete now also have a nice little animations with them.
[h3]New Object Outlines[/h3]
I've also added some new object highlights for various actions and situations.
You can't build here!
Possible build locations for Entrance and Windows
Bucket Paint area
[h2]Load Times Optimizations[/h2]
I don't know if any of you encountered this issue, but for the very large malls, the loading times could approach one minute mark. For example, my largest save file took roughly 39 seconds to load.
Luckily, I was able to reduce the loading times quite a bit. My largest save file now loads in 7.1 seconds. A reduction of almost 82%! This also helped with smaller saves, where the reduction was smaller, but still roughly 50%!
It is time to finally transform Mall Craze from a mall designer game into a proper management game. Apart from bug fixes and more content, this update is the last update before Early Access where I've made a bigger changes and additions to the Building and Customization systems.
My focus is now shifting mainly towards adding management gameplay, and I already know what needs to be done first - adding cashiers and customers!
Here's a reminder of how the new models (ver. 4) will look like in comparison to the older versions:
It is time for me to get back to work! Once again, thank you everyone for your support,
and I will see you next time!
Take care!
- Milan, developer
Time for another dose of Mall Craze updates! Before we start, thanks to everyone who tried the new Demo or wishlisted the game! We have a lot of new folks around here, either from the OTK Games Expo or the Next Fest. Welcome onboard!
Important message about 0.2.7 update (released today - July 13, 2023) This update is no longer compatible with old saves. During Early Access, this might happen as well as some new features may require a substantial restructuralization of save data. Although I'll try my best to minimize the frequency of it as much as possible.
Addressing Demo Feedback
The number of people that tried the new Demo was huge during the Next Fest and I've received a lot of feedback from you!
[h2]Tutorial[/h2]
I've received a lot of feedback from you about the current state of the tutorial. At this moment, It is more of a documentation, rather than an interactive guide. It will stay that way even during the initial phase of Early Access. The reason being that the game changes constantly, and I'm adding or changing things daily. That would make keeping a well polished interactive tutorial up to date costly in terms of time. Time that I would much rather spend on adding content and features at the moment.
[h2]Empty map[/h2]
When you launch the game, you are greeted with a beautiful landscape full of .. nothing? This will change before Early Access and there will be some starting malls that you will be able to tinker with :)
Development Update
Even though last month was pretty hectic (OTK, Next Fest), it wasn't lacking in terms of development. Quite the opposite actually, as I was trying to fix and add stuff as much as possible. You may have already noticed some changes on your own or you've read them in the Patch Notes.
Let's now go through them in more detail!
[h2]Changing designs during Build mode[/h2]
By far the biggest limitation of the Building and Customization process was the fact that you couldn't change the design of an object while building it. The only way to change it was in the Material Designer after you've build it. This would not be that big of an issue for objects that are build in relatively small quantities. The main issue however was building, customizing, and deleting floor.
You only had 2 options - Paint floor tiles one-by-one, or use Bucket Paint to paint the whole mall or shop floor. And even worse part was deleting the floor, where the only option was to delete it one-by-one (not a particularly funny experience when you accidentally build a 100x100 sized floor).
The solution was rather simple - allow Material Designer for ghost objects (objects that show you where a particular object will be placed). With that also came a new set of buttons that allow for an easy way of saving and loading these designs.
[h2]Bulldozer Tool[/h2]
We have a Customization part solved, but what about the delete issue? Remember, we still have to delete every single object manually one-by-one. Many games offer an area-delete tool for this purpose. Let's add one into Mall Craze as well!
Currently found in the bottom-right corner is the bulldozer tool that allows you to easily delete normal objects, floor, and products. All these 3 options can be separately toggled on/off, so if you only want to delete floor, or you only want to delete decoration objects, you can!
Not everything can be Bulldozed like this however - Mall and Shop area are still deleted inside the Construction and Shop Construction menus. This was a deliberate decision, as it would be easy to accidentally delete a shop.
[h2]3D TEXT[/h2]
A feature that was present in the old demo but was not ready for the Next Fest is now back in the game in it's improved form!
Currently, only Entrances hold a 3D text component, but in the future, I would like to add it into multiple objects, and also as it's own separate object.
So what can you customize for the text?
- Text itself
- Font
- Size
- Position
- Extrude depth
- Bevel size and type
- 4 materials: front, back, bevel, extrude
[h2]Visual Improvements[/h2]
[h3]Object Animations[/h3]
Some actions like build, paint, move, or delete now also have a nice little animations with them.
[h3]New Object Outlines[/h3]
I've also added some new object highlights for various actions and situations.
You can't build here!
Possible build locations for Entrance and Windows
Bucket Paint area
[h2]Load Times Optimizations[/h2]
I don't know if any of you encountered this issue, but for the very large malls, the loading times could approach one minute mark. For example, my largest save file took roughly 39 seconds to load.
Luckily, I was able to reduce the loading times quite a bit. My largest save file now loads in 7.1 seconds. A reduction of almost 82%! This also helped with smaller saves, where the reduction was smaller, but still roughly 50%!
Coming up next: Management!
It is time to finally transform Mall Craze from a mall designer game into a proper management game. Apart from bug fixes and more content, this update is the last update before Early Access where I've made a bigger changes and additions to the Building and Customization systems.
My focus is now shifting mainly towards adding management gameplay, and I already know what needs to be done first - adding cashiers and customers!
Here's a reminder of how the new models (ver. 4) will look like in comparison to the older versions:
It is time for me to get back to work! Once again, thank you everyone for your support,
and I will see you next time!
Take care!
- Milan, developer