Update 0.1.4 - Customers, Escalators, and Crash Reporter
[h2]Update 2 days after the original post: 🔧[/h2]
Based on the initial batch of crash reports, there are some crashes happening when launching the game, and random periodical crashes happening randomly. Based on the reports, these crashes are related to graphics card drivers. I'm sorry if this is happening to you. There is a possible solution - Mall Craze is developed on Unreal Engine version that has been released in May 2023. If your graphics card drivers are from around this time or older, there is a chance that you will experience these issues.
In that case, what you can do is update your graphics card drivers. It may not be a 100% solution, but it already helped a few people launch the game. Please follow the official instructions from your graphics card manufacturer (AMD, NVIDIA, Intel).
[h2]Original Text[/h2]
[h3]Hello everyone! 👋[/h3]
Today I bring U another batch of updates and changes. Are U ready? Let's dive into it!
Now, why the weird talk and the use of "U"? If you've played Mall Craze, the you're probably pretty familiar with this keybinding. So far, if you wanted to have customers in your mall, you had no other option but to spawn them by constantly pressing the U key. This was only a temporal solution (and not a particularly great one), which at least allowed you to bring some life into the mall.
Not anymore!
Customers are now arriving and leaving on their own!
[h2]Customer Behavior[/h2]
And that is not the only improvement to customers. The behavior has also been updated, and customers now better understand your mall. Up until now, their movement wasn't very sophisticated, and even though it made the mall more occupied, there weren't many people in the actual shops.
(the movement was literally random, making the chance that they will pick a spot inside a shop small).
Customers now spend more time inside shops, and they're also actually looking at the products. The new implementation still has a lot of room for improvement, but the overall flow is now more natural.
OLD behavior - customers roaming randomly:
NEW behavior - customers looking at products:
[h2]Improved character navigation[/h2]
By design, there aren't currently any collisions enabled for objects during building. This allows for huge possibilities of object combinations and creative arrangements, but also puts a lot of responsibility on the player. I've adjusted the navigation mesh properties to make sure that even tight passages and areas are more likely to be reachable. I then improved collisions for some objects to decrease the occurance of customers stepping on them (mainly benches, fountains, and other short objects).
Customer are still happy to sometimes get stuck inside objects and on the grass, so they're currently not being saved. Once these issues are dealt with and once there is an economy, saving of customers will work as expected.
If you would think of a list of objects that represent malls better than other, escalators would probably be pretty high up on that list. Because escalators are closely related to pathfinding and navigation, I've decided to take a closer look at them. There are now 2 escalator variants in the game - 1 floor and 2 floor. Both can be customized as any other object in the game, and you can also change their direction.
(there is a small shadow and reflection flickering that is introduced with TSR and Lumen reflections - I will look at it more in the future)
Hopefully, this update marks the beginning of more crash fixes. I've written a small teaser in the previous update and today, the Crash Reporter is now in the game! Well, technically, it's not IN the game, rather it is AFTER the game. Crash Reporter should now appear whenever Mall Craze crashes.
The sending of the report is not automatic, and it still requires you to press the "Send to Mall Craze Developer" button. No more emailing of the crash files is needed :)
You can still look at the reports yourself by clicking at the link in the reporter.
Thank You All for your support, and I will see you in the next update!
- Milan, developer
[h2]Additions & Improvements[/h2]
[h2]Small Changes[/h2]
[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
Based on the initial batch of crash reports, there are some crashes happening when launching the game, and random periodical crashes happening randomly. Based on the reports, these crashes are related to graphics card drivers. I'm sorry if this is happening to you. There is a possible solution - Mall Craze is developed on Unreal Engine version that has been released in May 2023. If your graphics card drivers are from around this time or older, there is a chance that you will experience these issues.
In that case, what you can do is update your graphics card drivers. It may not be a 100% solution, but it already helped a few people launch the game. Please follow the official instructions from your graphics card manufacturer (AMD, NVIDIA, Intel).
[h2]Original Text[/h2]
[h3]Hello everyone! 👋[/h3]
Today I bring U another batch of updates and changes. Are U ready? Let's dive into it!
Customers
Now, why the weird talk and the use of "U"? If you've played Mall Craze, the you're probably pretty familiar with this keybinding. So far, if you wanted to have customers in your mall, you had no other option but to spawn them by constantly pressing the U key. This was only a temporal solution (and not a particularly great one), which at least allowed you to bring some life into the mall.
Not anymore!
Customers are now arriving and leaving on their own!
[h2]Customer Behavior[/h2]
And that is not the only improvement to customers. The behavior has also been updated, and customers now better understand your mall. Up until now, their movement wasn't very sophisticated, and even though it made the mall more occupied, there weren't many people in the actual shops.
(the movement was literally random, making the chance that they will pick a spot inside a shop small).
Customers now spend more time inside shops, and they're also actually looking at the products. The new implementation still has a lot of room for improvement, but the overall flow is now more natural.
OLD behavior - customers roaming randomly:
NEW behavior - customers looking at products:
[h2]Improved character navigation[/h2]
By design, there aren't currently any collisions enabled for objects during building. This allows for huge possibilities of object combinations and creative arrangements, but also puts a lot of responsibility on the player. I've adjusted the navigation mesh properties to make sure that even tight passages and areas are more likely to be reachable. I then improved collisions for some objects to decrease the occurance of customers stepping on them (mainly benches, fountains, and other short objects).
Customer are still happy to sometimes get stuck inside objects and on the grass, so they're currently not being saved. Once these issues are dealt with and once there is an economy, saving of customers will work as expected.
Escalators
If you would think of a list of objects that represent malls better than other, escalators would probably be pretty high up on that list. Because escalators are closely related to pathfinding and navigation, I've decided to take a closer look at them. There are now 2 escalator variants in the game - 1 floor and 2 floor. Both can be customized as any other object in the game, and you can also change their direction.
(there is a small shadow and reflection flickering that is introduced with TSR and Lumen reflections - I will look at it more in the future)
Crash Reporter
Hopefully, this update marks the beginning of more crash fixes. I've written a small teaser in the previous update and today, the Crash Reporter is now in the game! Well, technically, it's not IN the game, rather it is AFTER the game. Crash Reporter should now appear whenever Mall Craze crashes.
The sending of the report is not automatic, and it still requires you to press the "Send to Mall Craze Developer" button. No more emailing of the crash files is needed :)
You can still look at the reports yourself by clicking at the link in the reporter.
Thank You All for your support, and I will see you in the next update!
- Milan, developer
Full Patch Notes
[h2]Additions & Improvements[/h2]
- Customers are now arriving and leaving on their own.
- Customer behavior improved: customers are now actually looking at products.
- Customer behavior improved: customers now spend more time inside shops.
- Escalators added: 1 & 2 floor variants. Escalators can change directions.
- Navigation mesh improved, allowing customers to better navigate in tight areas.
- Collisions for navigation improved for these objects:
(palm tree, grass, 2 flowers, 2 fountains, 2 pavement sides, 2 benches, 3 mannequin products). - Crash Reporter Added.
[h2]Small Changes[/h2]
- "U" keybind to manually spawn customers removed.
- Static road with sidewalks added into the map.
- Starting camera position adjusted to show road.
- Directional indirect lighting slightly adjusted.
- Customers now also have opacity animation when arriving and leaving.
- Tutorial UI changes: Customers text updated.
- Tutorial UI changes: Buttons that are meant to be static are now static (no hover or sounds);
- 80's Dream: map slightly updated to make room for road.
- Sunny Skies: map updated to connect mall with the road.
[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
- Fixed: Game crashes when loading large save files (multiple-floor malls covering almost the entire map).
- Fixed: When moving object with Free Build, the next move operation has Free Build ON as well.
- Fixed: Moving objects down from upper floor makes them invisible.
- Fixed: Ground floor walls are sometimes not selectable after game load.