Things are starting to calm down in life and I'm able to get unpacked in our new house. Starting to work more nights on Shards of Magic, my flagship single player game, and it has been fun. I've noted all of the designs that have bugged me and things I've wanted to change. Some of the changes I've already started:
- I have switched all of "SendMessage" calls to delegate/events. SendMessage in Unity uses reflection and I'm doing enough of them to worry about performance.
- I've cleaned out my main object script. Subdividing sections into partial classes or other scripts makes it easier to update and manage.
- I've updated the object activation system. This, made from scratch, logic system allows me to make some very robust puzzles and AI. I've updated it to run more efficiently and be less complex.
- Since I last worked in this code, Unity has done a lot of upgrades to their user interface system. So I've implementing an entirely new UI and trashed 20+ classes from the old system.
- Finally, I switched from using the "Link to the Past" 2D sprites to using 3D sprites! Still a top-down game, but going to a 3D system makes it easier to have nicer animations, better particle effects, and so much more. I haven't settled on a set of graphics yet (using some test ones from my other game), but all of the major code changes are done.
I'm very happy with the changes. Next on my list is to update pathfinding, add in enhanced particle effects, and put my world together. Sometime in February I'm trying to get a short video of the work in progress. Stay tuned!