Universal Demon Hunters - Upcoming Turn-based Dungeon Crawler from Wave Light Games

Hi guys,

Some potentially good news. While the latest patch release from Unity didn't fix the issues I was facing, I've found that if I strip down all the audio and 3d objects that are not critical to the first few levels, it allows the game to run on my iPhone 5 test device. Therefore, I'm thinking there must be some type of 3d object or audio file that is just not compatible with Unity 5 and is causing errors.


So over the next week or so, I'm going to revert to a backup and analyze each file and strip file by file to identify what file was causing the issue. I have no idea how long this will take overall but at least it's a potential move forward. I've hated being stuck for the past 10 days or so. Okay, will post an update once I have some more concrete findings.

 

Hi guys ... some great news. It looks like I found the issue that was affecting the IOS version. Unity 5 has an entirely new audio system and it has some new settings in terms of how audio files were handled. When I upgraded my project from Unity 4, I didn't adjust as I assumed the system would just keep the old settings or do the upgrade in an intelligent manner. However, this was an oversight as the audio setting Unity 5 did by default were totally wrong for some audio files. I went through and redid the audio settings on all audio clips (3000+) and when I did that ... everything seems to work great on my iPhone 5 test device! No more weird null reference errors and the game seems stable again.

So back to business ... I think I'll need a couple weeks to finish up the loose ends and test things more fully. I'll then submit a new play test build. So let's say for the Monday, May 4th as the new target for the next (and hopefully final) play test build. Obviously, I'll include those that have messaged me already in the play test group but if anyone else wants to join ... let me know.

 

Hey guys,

Quick update. I've done a fair bit of testing today and all looks great. I think it's safe for me to go ahead and start finishing up the game. So without further ado, let me show you the new character selection screen. The astute observers among you will notice that there are now a whopping 24 character classes to build your 6-member adventuring party from. Here's a picture of the fearsome Undead Champion. He's a unique warrior that has a poisoned blade and uses fear to his advantage...

Screen Shot 2015-04-17 at 4.56.36 PM by rajdhillon909, on Flickr

 

Yep ... two of my test devices are IOS 8.3. So should be good there. I uploaded a 64 bit build as a test and received no warnings or errors in the validation steps. It seems to have uploaded successfully.

 

Hey guys .. quick update. I was able to adjust some settings in terms of optimizations and it looks like the game runs well on my iPad Mini 1st gen. I've only tried the first level so far but it looks like it might be able to support 512 MB RAM devices after all. Will have to play through all levels though just to be sure.

 

Hey guys ... here are a couple of screenshots taken from my iPhone 5 test device. As you can see, I've redone the lighting as originally it was too dark. Can you let me know what you think? Since the last set of screenshots I showed, this version uses new fog effects and physically based shaders / renderers of Unity 5.

image by rajdhillon909, on Flickr

image by rajdhillon909, on Flickr

Let me know what you think. Again, this is from an iPhone 5 and runs smoothly. Is the lighting still too dark or have I gone too far and made things too light?

 

Well, you can always adjust the brightness on the device itself. However, for performance reasons, I have to bake the lighting into the game so can't really adjust dynamically as an option like you can with PC games and such. Baking the lights and shadows saves a lot of CPU cycles so is necessary on the mobile platforms to get graphically intensive games running.

 

Some more pictures ... I'm enjoying taking pictures from an actual test device. I just learned how to do it on IOS.

image by rajdhillon909, on Flickr


This is the Tree Giant's Bark Skin ability in action. It increase the damage reduction and critical hit immunity of all friendly units within 3 tile radius. Make allies (and the Tree Giant himself) a lot harder to hurt. Effect looks pretty cool with spinning leaves bursting up from the ground underneath each party member.


image by rajdhillon909, on Flickr


This is an action shot of the Samurai's spinning sword strike ability (I forget what I called it). The Samurai actually steps forward as he strikes so that's why he's currently in the same position as the Giant Spider he's attacking. It also shows the weapon trail effect that is on all characters with swords / axes / weapons. It looks really cool when animated.


Again, please let me know your thoughts on lighting levels.

 

Thanks ... things are still looking good. Tested the 64 bit version through the first 10 levels and no significant issues so far.

 

Just posting a quick update. Have done some minor bug fixing and lots of play testing and things are still looking good. Here are some screenshots of one of the later levels ... level 15 or 16. It's a boss fight level against a Goblin Grand Shaman and his 3-headed Hydra pet. There's also a horde of goblins and ogres to fight through as well. These shots show how large some levels can get and also just to what extent you can zoom in and pan the camera freely. The fog effect is displayed as well and this is something you can toggle on or off in the options menu. These shots were all taken from my actual iPhone 5 test device.

image by rajdhillon909, on Flickr

image by rajdhillon909, on Flickr

image by rajdhillon909, on Flickr

The reason the Pyromancer is on fire in the above pictures are because he activated his "Cloak of Flames" ability ... which is a self buff that increases the damage output and critical chance of his fireball attacks. The purple rays shining on the assassin are because she just activated her Shadow Walk ability that increases her critical melee chance and dodge chance. Okay ... hope you like what you're seeing.

 

Hey guys,

Just a quick update. Everything is still on track for an updated playlest release on 1st of May.

I am running into a crash bug that happens at the end of the first level on a new game and sometimes when the player quits to the main menu from a game in progress. It's pretty random so not sure what the issue is ... I suspect it's more Unity iOS weirdness as I don't see this on my Android version. I'm doing some digging to see what it might be. It's annoying but as it doesn't seem to happen during gameplay, it shouldn't be too bad. I don't think it will affect releasing the playlets build though I do hope I can fix it. Apple may not like the crashes when they do their review.

Otherwise, I've enabled level of detail so now when you zoom into the action, the characters switch to higher poly versions and look a lot better.

 

Hey guys .... quick update. I think I resolved the crash bug. Game seems stable now.

 

Just a quic shot to show how the level of detail system works. When you zoom into a character model or enemy, the system switches to a high poly version of the model. You can see the assassin looks really nice when zoomed in. When zoomed out, it switches to a low poly model for performance but at that range, you can't really tell the difference anyway.

image by rajdhillon909, on Flickr

The above picture is, again, taken straight out of my iPhone 5 test device. No fancy photoshopping or anything.

 

Hey guys, just a quick update. I'm uploading the next play test build to iTunes Connect today. Hopefully it will all go well.

I did some further changes and changed the minimum iOS level to 8.0 and things seem much more stable and faster. Not sure if it was the changes on my end or switching the minimum iOS level from 6.0 to 8.0.

Last call for play testers .... May will be a month of play testing and tweaking for balance and so forth. With 24 characters and lots of enemies, getting the right gameplay difficulty and character balance is really important. If you want to be part of the play test and haven't reached out to me already, please post here and let me know.