This is the general state of modern indie games, where devs completely rely on third party game engines and are unable to implement a proper save game system. This is also the reason why roguelites or arcade platformer, where when you die you just restart the level from a fixed check point, are so ubiquitous.I mean, most Sierra games inactivated saving during specific sequences so this isn't such a big deal.
But the fact that they are having so much trouble implementing a simple save system in an adventure game, of all things, is just baffling.
So, they're going for 2 records? Longest development time I believe is still held by Cleve at 20 years, they're only at 11.
Longest Kickstarter, they might have something. I don't think even Scam Citizen has been active this long.
So, they're going for 2 records? Longest development time I believe is still held by Cleve at 20 years, they're only at 11.
Longest Kickstarter, they might have something. I don't think even Scam Citizen has been active this long.
UnReal World, a rogue-like made by a couple of Finnish developers, spent 26 years in development hell before being released in 2016.
(Dwarf Fortress turns 20 next year, that is also considered to be in perpetual development hell.)
As far as I know the situation of DF is different. It is not a kickstart with definite time deliveries or a pre-alpha commercial game.(Dwarf Fortress turns 20 next year, that is also considered to be in perpetual developmenthell.)
But the fact that they are having so much trouble implementing a simple save system in an adventure game, of all things, is just baffling.
This is the general state of modern indie games, where devs completely rely on third party game engines and are unable to implement a proper save game system. This is also the reason why roguelites or arcade platformer, where when you die you just restart the level from a fixed check point, are so ubiquitous.
From what I read, the SCI games from Sierra (maybe AGI as well) have no sophisticated coding for a save game system, but just just did a memory dump of the whole base memory.In case of Sierra Ken Williams himself and his early cohort of programmers did that - a custom scripting system that can control any objects and assets in a flexible and powerful way. He himself is very proud they've had that competitive advantage with AGI/SCI VM.
Downloading a random SCI game savefiles pack from here (LSL3) shows me that the average save file is 40kb. SQ2 is 3kb each. Looks pretty small to me. They might've done that later (Gabriel Knight savefiles increase from 40kb to 170kb) but it doesn't look that way. I'd say for AGI it's inventory flags, room flags and global flags (if they even had them in AGI). Incompatibility between versions can be explained by implementation details.From what I read, the SCI games from Sierra (maybe AGI as well) have no sophisticated coding for a save game system, but just just did a memory dump of the whole base memory.
That is also the reason that Sierra savegames tend to be quite large for their time and also that they were incompatible between different versions or upgrades of the same game.
But the fact that they are having so much trouble implementing a simple save system in an adventure game, of all things, is just baffling.
This is the general state of modern indie games, where devs completely rely on third party game engines and are unable to implement a proper save game system. This is also the reason why roguelites or arcade platformer, where when you die you just restart the level from a fixed check point, are so ubiquitous.
I don't use any engine and save system in any game with significant amount of state is a pita. There's just no easy way to implement recursive object dump/restore unless someone did a very good job at lower level, then you can mark properties as serializable or something (I think Unreal Engine has that but I might be mistaken) and hope it works by itself. And even then it's a lot of tedious work because restoring object state inevitably leads to something related to assets, because game state is usually tied to graphics in some way. I'm not ashamed to admit that I put off any work on saving/loading until the game is close to completion because not only you have to do it once but you have to keep it in mind forever after that. And if there's a way to not do it, I take it without any misgivings. The players start complaining though... In case of a game based on Unity you have to load your state from the file and then manipulate the scene to have the desired state, likely another source of pain.
Adventures tend to have huge amounts of unique objects and object states that are tied to art and animations often controlled by scripting and especially timer scripts. So save/load anywhere becomes a tremendous task unless you have a custom scripting environment that was designed with that in mind from the ground up. In case of Sierra Ken Williams himself and his early cohort of programmers did that - a custom scripting system that can control any objects and assets in a flexible and powerful way. He himself is very proud they've had that competitive advantage with AGI/SCI VM. Same thing with LucasArts, excellent job by Ron Gilbert, Aric Wilmunder and probably others implementing ScummVM and modifying it over the years.
I think that the approach of object oriented programming (as opposed to data oriented programming) and the ubiquitous graphics/gaming engines now used (that obfuscate the data), are among the main reasons why games with a proper saving game system are less and less frequent, in particular in the indie gaming scene.
Here I further theorize that this state of programming is also the reason why, at present, so many indie games are based on game-loops that don't need complex persistent data access, management and storing: metroidvanias, roguelikes, soulslike, etc.
It is not because these are the most enjoyable genres available. It is because these are the easiest games to develop with the available game engines and programming tools, since they not require persistent complex data management.
Latest news on SpaceVenture being released
First off, thank you all again for your patience. We realize every time you hear from us, you are hoping we'll announce the official release of the game. We all wish that were the case as well. The main reason for this update being so late coming is because we were feeling like the problems would be resolved within a couple of more weeks of development. That mindset kept going on and on. All we can do at this point is assure you that the game is going to be released and that we are very close to finishing.
SO WHERE ARE THINGS WITH THE PROJECT RIGHT NOW?
Within this whole year, the main focus has been to fix existing bugs and to finish the save load system. After doing more testing and purposely trying to break things, we discovered even more issues with our existing system. Unfortunately this means further time spent in development. The issues discovered weren't just on the save load system itself but on how certain scenes of the game dealt with relating information back in ordered to be properly loaded.
We do have some encouraging news on that though. In the next two weeks, a couple of our developers (one of which is the lead programmer) are going to get together in an office and put in some 16-18 hour days to try and solve these existing issues. We are feeling pretty confident that this will stamp out the remaining bugs on the system and get us where we need it to be for releasing the actual game.
As soon as we have more to update you all on, we'll post it here.
BESIDES THE SAVE LOAD SYSTEM, WHAT ELSE HAS HAPPENED DURING THE LAST FEW MONTHS?
NOTE: This info will be especially helpful if you played the Beta
ART BOOK TEASER
- Bugs have been fixed in the Nostradamus areas of the game
- Missing narrative comedy has been added to the Nostradamus area of the game
- Missing SFX have been added to the Nostradamus area of the game
- Bug fixes for the objective system not working correctly in the Escape Pod area of the game
- Bug fixes on the cutscenes between the Nostradamus and Scraps Garage areas of the game
- Bug fixes in the Scraps garage area of the game including issues where sequences weren't happening in the correct order
- Bug fixes have occurred involving the Objectives System for helping players know what they have accomplished
- A SFX has been added for when the player has scored points
- New 3D music added for Scraps radio being heard higher or lower depending on which area you are in
- New music has been added to the Rooter Repair sequence
- A "Wimp out" (Think Space Quest 4 Monolith Burger) button has been added to the Rooter Repair sequence for people that really don't enjoy the kind of puzzle that is being used in that area
- In the Crane Pit area there have been some much cooler polish animations added
- In the Crane Pit area there has also been a lot of polish added to SFX management involving junk piece collision
- Bug fixes have been added to the Crane Pit area involving Aces PDA not working correctly for downloaded Apps in the game.
- Bug fixes to landing on Tatoorakis
- Bug fixes to Tatoorakis Hydrolator and Desert areas of the game involving a missing component sometimes not be available for finishing the sequence
- Bug fixes to the finishing cutscene for the Tatoorakis area of the game including ship take off
- Bug fixes to landing at Taco Nova
- Improvements to the Taco Nova mini game including a fun reason to get a high score
- Some artwork changes to Andromecon, including some additional alien creatures added
One of the things that Mark Crowe has been working on along with game testing and artwork polish is the official art book for SpaceVenture. This is something he had not spent time on putting together since the game artwork wasn't officially complete. Now that 99.9% of the artwork is complete, he was able to put some time in on getting it together. We wanted to show you all a little teaser of what it will look like.
Remember, even though he has completed the book, this is just a teaser. The full artbook contains over 30+ pages.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL TEASER or use the QR Code from your phone
JUST A REMINDER
Please do not message us your updated address information for rewards. We will eventually send out a survey that will allow you to put your updated information in there for us.
KEN AND ROBERTA WILLIAMS ARE MAKING A NEW GAME
Just in case you're out of the loop, we wanted to do a shout out to Ken and Roberta Williams along with our friend Marcus Mera. They are knee deep into remaking the game "Colossal Cave" into a new 3D/VR adventure game. We are really excited for them and can't wait to play their new game!
Please go check it out when you have some time!
https://www.colossalcave3d.com/
The count is at the first decade now, not just years any more.Wait, shouldn't that have been released like years ago?
Polish dub confirmed!there has also been a lot of polish added to SFX
Wait, shouldn't that have been released like years ago?