Missives and Musings: The Duality of Game Dev
[h2]What's New?[/h2]
The first month of a new year has come to its end (what), and we've made colossal strides towards Lost Isle being ready for early access later this year. The map is bigger than ever, with significantly higher vegetation and landmark density. Best of all, even with a bigger, more dense map, performance is also better than ever with higher frame rates and server reliability.
Before looking at server performance improvements and what that means for the state of the game... a few experiences from earlier today.
[h3]The Duality of Game Dev[/h3]
We pushed a freshly updated build to Steam for a few rounds of internal QA. I spent some time observing various wildlife AI, hoping to uncover the trigger for their locomotion sometimes not working properly. I encountered probably 10 different wolves. Some worked perfectly and others had issues. I documented my observations and was about to exit the game, when out of nowhere a lupine abomination howled in the distanced and challenged me to mortal combat.
If you're wondering what's in the player's hand at the beginning, those are top-tier bandages that heal and stop bleeding. Despite its appearance, it can actually kill and be killed. It caught me so off guard that I almost died before I could think to spawn in (hacks) a stack of bandages and spam use them while I ran laughing to safety.
Here's another in-game POV shot from today. I am horseback, sidehilling towards an ever-burning tree in the distance. I intend to chop it down with a freshly crafted axe, and to then use the energy-infused lumber to make a magic staff capable of shooting fireballs at the pesky skeletons guarding some fat loot chests. And all of this on a fantasy jungle island under a beautifully clear starlit night sky.
The lighting at night needs some adjustment - it's a bit too dark. The rider's hands aren't setup yet to grasp the reins properly, and the horse's head should probably be higher in the player's FOV. That tree will have different open-world spawn rules than it does now, and it's somehow missing the cool-looking spark particles that played in its branches a few weeks ago.
Our punch lists of bug fixes and polish look different these days. Instead of line items reading "server crashed when attempting to spawn a mushroom", now they more often read something like "1 out of roughly every 10 wolves requires an exorcism" or "where'd the tree sparks go?".
We still have a lot of ground to cover before our early access launch, but that today I was able ride a horse to a magic tree on a fantasy island, cut it down to craft a staff and shoot a fireball - all without the server crashing ;) - means that we're really getting somewhere.
[h3]Server Memory Optimizations[/h3]
Since the beginning, our goal for Lost Isle has been to allow for up to 200 players to experience the island together in a single server. We're big fans of Rust and other games like it, and we envisioned a game like that, but with our own unique spin on it. Making a compelling open-world multiplayer game capable of supporting that many players comes with a steep range of mountains to climb, and as of last week, we're happy to announce that we've successfully summited one of those peaks!
Without getting into the minutiae, here are the key details:
So what does this mean?
The list goes on and on, but basically this just means that not only will we be able to build our map bigger, but also much better! Who knew server memory optimizations could be so exciting?
[h3]Other Notes[/h3]
[h3]Stay in the Loop[/h3]
Don't miss out on important updates - make sure to wishlist Lost Isle here on Steam, join our Discord community, and follow us on X!
The first month of a new year has come to its end (what), and we've made colossal strides towards Lost Isle being ready for early access later this year. The map is bigger than ever, with significantly higher vegetation and landmark density. Best of all, even with a bigger, more dense map, performance is also better than ever with higher frame rates and server reliability.
Before looking at server performance improvements and what that means for the state of the game... a few experiences from earlier today.
[h3]The Duality of Game Dev[/h3]
We pushed a freshly updated build to Steam for a few rounds of internal QA. I spent some time observing various wildlife AI, hoping to uncover the trigger for their locomotion sometimes not working properly. I encountered probably 10 different wolves. Some worked perfectly and others had issues. I documented my observations and was about to exit the game, when out of nowhere a lupine abomination howled in the distanced and challenged me to mortal combat.
If you're wondering what's in the player's hand at the beginning, those are top-tier bandages that heal and stop bleeding. Despite its appearance, it can actually kill and be killed. It caught me so off guard that I almost died before I could think to spawn in (hacks) a stack of bandages and spam use them while I ran laughing to safety.
Here's another in-game POV shot from today. I am horseback, sidehilling towards an ever-burning tree in the distance. I intend to chop it down with a freshly crafted axe, and to then use the energy-infused lumber to make a magic staff capable of shooting fireballs at the pesky skeletons guarding some fat loot chests. And all of this on a fantasy jungle island under a beautifully clear starlit night sky.
The lighting at night needs some adjustment - it's a bit too dark. The rider's hands aren't setup yet to grasp the reins properly, and the horse's head should probably be higher in the player's FOV. That tree will have different open-world spawn rules than it does now, and it's somehow missing the cool-looking spark particles that played in its branches a few weeks ago.
Our punch lists of bug fixes and polish look different these days. Instead of line items reading "server crashed when attempting to spawn a mushroom", now they more often read something like "1 out of roughly every 10 wolves requires an exorcism" or "where'd the tree sparks go?".
We still have a lot of ground to cover before our early access launch, but that today I was able ride a horse to a magic tree on a fantasy island, cut it down to craft a staff and shoot a fireball - all without the server crashing ;) - means that we're really getting somewhere.
[h3]Server Memory Optimizations[/h3]
Since the beginning, our goal for Lost Isle has been to allow for up to 200 players to experience the island together in a single server. We're big fans of Rust and other games like it, and we envisioned a game like that, but with our own unique spin on it. Making a compelling open-world multiplayer game capable of supporting that many players comes with a steep range of mountains to climb, and as of last week, we're happy to announce that we've successfully summited one of those peaks!
Without getting into the minutiae, here are the key details:
- Our server memory limit is about 12GB, meaning we experience crashes if server memory exceeds that number.
- When scaling our map up to the goal size (large enough to accommodate up to 200 players), our server memory would climb to nearly 13GB after loading everything in like vegetation, AI, landmarks, loot, etc. and this was before accounting for any significant number of players. Not good.
- Our programmers made a plan with the goal of bringing it down to 8GB and went to work. After a few dedicated weeks, they were able to not only meet the requirement but reduce server memory by an additional 50%, bringing the baseline down to around 4GB. Heroes.
So what does this mean?
- We can reliably build with a large map that can comfortably support up to 200 players
- With the additional memory optimizations, we can also push the limits for quality
- Higher vegetation density with increased LOD and culling distances for smoother transitions and less popping
- More major and minor monuments and landmarks across the map
- More wildlife, enemy and NPC AI units
- More player-built structures
The list goes on and on, but basically this just means that not only will we be able to build our map bigger, but also much better! Who knew server memory optimizations could be so exciting?
[h3]Other Notes[/h3]
- Playtesting will resume again very soon! If you're interested in participating as a playtester make sure you join our Discord! (link below)
- With playtesting coming up soon we're looking to collaborate with content creators of all types and sizes. If that's you, join our Discord and send us a message!
[h3]Stay in the Loop[/h3]
Don't miss out on important updates - make sure to wishlist Lost Isle here on Steam, join our Discord community, and follow us on X!