Mall Craze News

[h3]Hello everyone! 👋[/h3][p]First and foremost, let’s address the elephant in the room. I haven’t posted any news, nor has the game been updated in the last 13 months. I’m really sorry for keeping you in the dark, especially here on Steam. Mall Craze started as a hobby side project of mine in 2019, and since spring 2023, I’ve been working on the game full time. [/p][p]That has changed in January last year, as I was not able to continue the development in the same manner. The last year was spent stabilizing my financial situation, so that I could get back to developing the game at least part time. Many times during the year I tried to restart the development, but life kept happening and I had to postpone things again. Fortunately, things got better and I’m now optimistic about the long term stability of the development.[/p][p]With that being said, let’s take a look at the current situation:[/p]

• [p]I will continue developing Mall Craze as a side project in my spare time, instead of full time.[/p]
• [p]The frequency of updates will highly depend on the current amount of work that I have at my job (I’m a freelance videographer/motion graphic designer, so some months are busier than others).[/p]
• [p]I’m going back to 2019/2020, where I treated the game more as a hobby side project that was not primarily driven by ensuring the game generates enough revenue to justify itself. Arguably, this early period was probably the time where I had the most fun with the game.[/p]

[p]Mall Craze was originally released into Early Access on September 19th, 2023. Since then, I’ve tried to improve the game in many different areas. While the game is undoubtedly in a much better state now than it was in 2023, it is still nowhere near the state that I would consider to be done, nor the state that I envisioned it to be when the game eventually achieves its full 1.0 release.[/p][p][/p][h3]Speaking of which, let’s take a look at the new roadmap for the 1.0 release[/h3][p][/p][p][/p][p]I hope that I’ve learned my mistakes with the Early Access launch, and this time I would really like to make sure that the game launches in the best possible state that I can do.[/p]

• [p]Phase 1 - While I was making the roadmap and going over the main areas of the game that need improvement, there were 2 main areas: content and features. Both of which are currently lacking in various ways. For Phase 1, I’ve decided to focus more on the current content that the game has, but just add more. The reasons are two-fold: it will be much easier to ease back into development that way, and the game also needs more content for me to start developing other features, like a proper business game mode and such.[/p]
• [p]Phase 2 - During this middle phase, the game will start getting more feature updates rather than content updates. I might still sprinkle some new shop or stall here and there, but the main focus will primarily be on adding completely new stuff and mechanics.[/p]
• [p]Phase 3 - Getting ready for release. At this point, the game should be almost done when it comes to content and features, and the focus will mostly shift towards adding additional non-gameplay related stuff like localization, achievements, optimizations, Quality of Life (QoL) changes, Etc.[/p]
• [p]Also, as you can see, there are no timestamps for each phase. I’ve deliberately decided to omit these, because right now it would be really hard to give accurate estimates.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]See you in the next update.[/h3][p]I will be starting to work on the next update next week, and I’m really looking forward to working on the game again![/p]

• [p]Milan, Developer [/p]

[h2]Available Now[/h2][p]
[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]
[/p]

[h2]Small Changes[/h2]

• Active object UI is now hidden during object move.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed: Designs are not set to default when completely deleting mall or shop area and then rebuilding it in the same place later.
  
• Fixed: Game sometimes crashes when completely deleting mall or shop area and then rebuilding it in the same place later.
  
• Fixed: Character navigation on escalators crashes the game in unique situations.
  
• Fixed: Entering shop construction via Entrance UI doesn't close Construction Tabs.
  
• Fixed: Clicking on Eyedropper while in Build, Move or Paint mode produces confusing behaviour.
  
• Fixed: Clicking on Bulldozer while in Build, Move or Paint mode produces confusing behaviour.
  
• Fixed: Eyedropping Entrance, Window, Cashier Table or Product while not in shop construction prevents opening that shop's dashboard via cashier table.
  
• Fixed: Eyedropper tool doesn't copy object's rotation.
  
• Fixed: It is possible to enter shop construction during object Build and Move modes, producing unpredictable situations.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed: Copying and Pasting Material Cards crashes the game.
  
• Fixed: Pasting Entrance and Window designs sometimes makes some materials stuck.
  

[h3]Hello everyone! 👋[/h3]

In the age of frame generation and upscaling techniques, why not treat ourselves with some real frames and sharper graphics for once?

Thanks to the changes to the material system behind the curtains, I was able to improve massive CPU bottleneck for both DirectX 11 & 12! Besides that, the game now also uses up to 50% less RAM while using DirectX 11! The same thing is true for load times, which have now been decreased by 30% while using DirectX 11.

(while being CPU bottlenecked)

Simulation games tend to be pretty CPU heavy, and that's no different for Mall Craze as well. While the game can run well with an empty map, the game quickly becomes demanding on your processor
once you've build a larger mall with hundreds of customers.

At that point, no matter how much you lower the graphical settings, the FPS stays the same. Congratulations! You've now hit a CPU bottleneck, and there's not much you can do about it, besides maybe turning off other programs that are running on your PC.☹️

Let's see how the CPU bottleneck looks in practice:



As you can see, no matter how much I absolutely destroy the graphics, the performance stays the same...

[h3]Coming up with the solution 🔧[/h3]
(technical info that you can skip if you want)

By far the biggest contributor to this problem was the customization system - namely the amount of dynamic materials the objects have, and thus the increase of draw calls that your processor needs to send to your graphics card. There weren't many solutions to this problem that I knew of.

That was until I started experimenting with Custom Primitive Data, where I started to see a potential for huge decrease in draw calls. The problem was that I could only fit 4 materials into the CPD, and there are many objects, products and designs that have more than that. That's when I came up with a sort of hybrid material system, where objects with 4 and less materials use CPD that reduce draw calls thanks to instancing, and objects with more than 4 materials use dynamic materials.
Behind the curtain, the customization code got a bit more complicated, but in the end, the results are worth it!

The number of draw calls in the 80's Dream map went from 44 000 to 2 000! (end of technical info)

[h3]Results: 📄[/h3]


For 80's Dream map, while using DirectX 11, the CPU bottleneck has been improved by 115%,
increasing the FPS from 39 to 84! 📈


Similar thing can be said for DirectX 12 as well, where the CPU bottleneck has been improved by 28%,
increasing the FPS from 68 to 87! 📈

Of course, your results may vary! These tests were performed on a Ryzen 5600 with Radeon RX590.

As I mentioned at the beginning, besides these increases, the RAM usage in DirectX 11 has been decreased by up to 50%, and the same thing can be said for load times, which were decreased by 30% in DirectX 11.

[h3]Who's going to profit from these improvements?[/h3]
Everyone who likes to build medium to large malls, and everyone with an older CPU!


Even in the previous versions of Mall Craze, DirectX 11 has always been the RHI with a superior image sharpness. Mall Craze uses Unreal Engine's TSR as the anti-aliasing method, which produces less artifacts and blur in motion when using DX 11 with Shader Model 5. The problem has always been the performance of DX 11, which in CPU bottleneck situations was far worse in comparison to DX 12 (43% worse), making it good only as a fall-back solution for people who experience instability and crashes with DX 12.

Given how much has DirectX 11 been improved with this update in terms of FPS, RAM usage and load times, it is now comparable to DirectX 12 (within 4%)!
This makes it not only a good fall-back RHI for some people, but also a good "daily driver" for everyone! Because of this, DirectX 11 will now be the default RHI for new players.

For those who already played the game, you'll have to change to DirectX 11 manually in the graphics settings if you want to experiment with it.

[h3]Lowering the minimum requirements for the game[/h3]
Thanks to all these improvements, the minimum requirements for the game are now lowered for all 3 main components:

• CPU
  
• GPU
  
• RAM
  

Thank you everyone for your support, and I will see you in the next update! ❤️
- Milan, developer



[h2]Additions & Improvements[/h2]

• Up to 115% higher FPS in DX 11 while being CPU bottlenecked (depends on mall size).
  
• Up to 28% higher FPS in DX 12 while being CPU bottlenecked (depends on mall size).
  
• Up to 50% lower RAM usage in DX 11 (depends on mall size).
  
• 30% faster load times in DX 11.
  
• DirectX 11 now the default RHI for new players.
  

[h2]Available Now[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1223530/

[h3]Hello everyone! 👋[/h3]

I was looking for a small gift that I could give you in this holiday season, and I think I found something!

Localizations are slowly coming to Mall Craze! ✏️

The first one being Czech today, as that's my mother tongue, making it the easiest one to start with, and to make sure that everything works well.

Other languages will be added in future updates. Most likely in the form of community translations.
If you're interested in helping with this cause, please join the Discord server where most of the work will be organized.



Merry Christmas everyone, and I will see you in the next update! 🎄🎁
- Milan, developer



[h2]Additions & Improvements[/h2]

• Czech localization added.
  

[h2]Small Changes[/h2]

• Some texts in the UI edited for easier localization.
  

[h2]Available Now[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1223530/