Idle Together News

[p]We went a bit further, adding even more detail and texture to the tree.[/p][p]Also, by changing the background, which was too bright, the tree now stands out better.[/p][p]The trees are clearly visible and look even more beautiful ![/p][p][/p]

[p]The in-game background has been slightly darkened to make the game elements stand out more.[/p][p]It has also been modified to try and remove the repeating "square" effect. However, as you can see when zooming out a lot, it's still not perfect...[/p][p]But I’m getting closer ![/p]

A visual update for the trees has been released to make them look better. Their size has been increased from 32x32 to 64x64 pixels, allowing for more detail, especially since the trees are quite large in the game, so the goal is to make them look nicer.

I hope you'll like them! This is the beginning of the graphic overhauls, which will be gradually introduced into the game.

Feel free to share your thoughts, nothing is set in stone. This is, above all, a game made with you.

I wanted to take a moment to sincerely thank you for the trust you've placed in Idle Together. On February 28th, version 0.1 was released and looking back on it now honestly makes me cringe a little... but it also reminds me how far we've come.

Idle Together has traveled a long road since then. Thanks to your support, I was able to collaborate with professionals who helped me on various aspects of the game. I'm really proud of the direction the game has taken, and even more grateful that this different kind of idle game has found a place in your hearts. I see it through your feedback on Discord, and of course through your amazing Steam reviews.

Along the way, I’ve seen both harsh criticism and sincere praise and both helped shape the game. Today, we’ve built a wonderful community of nearly 100 active players who share feedback, discuss strategies, report bugs, and suggest improvements. I'm honestly so lucky. And I know it.

I’m rambling a bit because it’s hard to find the right words, so maybe a simple heartfelt thank you is all I need to say. So... thank you ! ❤️

This is just the beginning. Idle Together will keep evolving through many more updates. The official Early Access release is getting closer, all that’s left is polishing the UI and improving the overall game experience. I’m not giving a date yet, because I want to move at my own pace, but we’re very close.

So here it is, 1,000 thank-yous to the 1,000 people who bought the game ! I hope it continues to give you many more hours of fun ! (And judging by the thousands of hours some of you have already clocked in... I’m not too worried)

💛

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3468430/

Do you think we can reach 10,000 after one year ?

After many updates, the game has become a much more substantial experience, requiring more and more calculations, especially as updates allow players to progress farther and faster. That’s why it was time for a first round of optimization. Fortunately, I had planned for this !

In the settings menu, you can now choose a performance level, ranging from minimum to maximum, with a total of 5 performance levels available.

To help you understand what each level does, here's what I implemented :

• At the lowest level, all optional visuals like grass textures are removed, random generation is simplified and more uniform, and the calculations made by villagers are coarsened.
  
• At the highest level, no optimization is applied: all textures, randomness, and villager calculations are rendered exactly as originally intended.
  

Let me give you some examples with the villagers :

• Walking animation : every animation frame is counted to allow a smooth transition and synchronous restart when rotating. At minimum (or medium when too many villagers are present), frames are no longer tracked, the default animation just replays from the start. At maximum quality, there’s no restriction: every frame is always counted, regardless of how many villagers are on screen.
  
• Villager calculations : to optimize performance, I artificially reduce numerical values. Processing a "1" is faster than processing a "2", so this causes small "inconsistencies" as optimization ramps up, based on the number of villagers.
  

I ran some calculations to figure out the maximum optimization I can apply without causing issues that would require recalculations. Hopefully I didn’t mess it up, I did run a few tests !

In fact, you might notice that once you reach a certain threshold of villagers, your FPS might increase.

Right now, I’m working a bit blindly, I really need your feedback based on your hardware to determine what optimization parameters I should tweak. It’s possible that current settings aren’t sufficient.

Nevertheless, there’s a limit to how much optimization I can do. Eventually, if you want to maintain your FPS, you’ll have to drop to a lower performance level. I still have a bit of wiggle room and some tuning to do, like deciding how many villagers it takes before increasing resource optimization.

Meanwhile, I found a few minor improvements and applied them, but they should have a negligible impact so I won’t go into detail.

I hope this helps your setups go further into the game before things start feeling uncomfortable. Share your feedback on the game’s Discord, and I’ll see you soon for the soundscape update !