Finally, at long last!
We fixed the biggest issue that was plaguing the iiRcade version of Circus Interstellar: the lag!
And yes, you did indeed read that correctly, the game has gotten a slight name change as well. Little did we know that Cirque was pronounced “sirk” rather than “sir-kay”, who knew lol.
There’s quite a bit to go through, so lets get started!
1: New name new look
So yeah, we’re a bunch of silly brains who forget to look up pronunciations for words before we decide that it should be the title of our game. (Yeah yeah, yuk it up!)
So after thinking about it, we decided that Circus sounded more like what we were originally going for, so Circus Interstellar will be the final title for the game. (hopefully…)
We think it should also help with finding the game when people go to look for it in a good ol’ google search. At least that’s the idea!
Here’s a preview of the fresh new title art!
Yeah, lookin’ snazzy!
2: A hunk of burning fire
Those of you that saw the last Quick Thought that we posted know that we were working on changing the fire effect for the Jugularnaut, due to the performance issues it was giving us.
I’m happy to say that we’ve finally finished creating that new fire effect and man oh man it is looking oh so good!
Now the fire is hardly costing any performance at all!
We had some lag issues for a bit on the iiRcade, but quickly figured out a good work around where we mimicked the effect with an animated sprite instead, which totally did the trick!
3. Farewell lag, you wont be missed
As you all know from previous posts, Circus Interstellar’s performance on the iiRcade was shakey at best and downright unplayable at worst.
Unfortunately, even after figuring out the fire effect issue we were still experiencing tremendous lag. Changing the fire did help out quite a bit, but something was still occasionally slowing the game to a crawl.
This was frustrating and we couldn’t wrap our heads around what the hell could be causing the lag.
That was until we realized: “wait. Aren’t the ground reflections technically drawing all of the enemies and players twice? Uh oh.”
We then went into Game Maker and removed the reflections from the iiRcade version and booted it up.
And lo and behold! The performance was improved tenfold!
After that it was just slight changes here and there until we finally reached a level of performance that we could live with.
Now when we play the iiRcade version we actually have fun and aren’t going “why, oh god why is it lagging??”
It’s wonderful.
4. Upgrade chips are your friend
This is actually something we implemented awhile back, but we forgot to mention it in a blog, so here it is.
In the original version of the game we had these things called Hypo’s. These were basically temporary powerups you could pickup in a level that would either give you a boost to your character, such as hyper speed, or boost your weapon, such as changing it into a shotgun.
These were really fun to pickup but we felt that it the powerups were short lived, as you lost them when you either died or left the level. We wanted to add something that sorta made you feel like your character was growing stronger as you progressed through the game but couldn’t just let players keep these powerups as some of them made you overpowered and could break the game entirely.
Enter: The Upgrade Chip!
Upgrade chips show up in levels randomly just like the Hypo’s, but unlike the regular Hypo’s these Chips will actually stay with your character as you progress.
These Chips will give you boosts such as: increased sprint speed, faster laser shots, increased cotton candy chance, increased health, and even modify specific Hypo’s that you pick up.
Beware! You’ll lose all collected upgrade chips upon death! So watch out for those stray pies…
Upgrade Chips really add another layer of gameplay and will change how you play as you make your way through the game.
It’s also super fun to race your friends to the Chips and drink up their salty tears when you snag it first! >:D
Here’s a list of the Upgrade Chips currently in the game:
- Blue and yellow: Bigger radius for Atomic Shot.
- Pink: Increased cotton candy chance.
- Purple: Extended dodge frames.
- Green: Increased maximum health.
- Aqua: Increased speed for Hyper Hypo.
- Yellow: Dodges kill clowns.
- Blue: Laser travels faster.
- Green and yellow: No bounce limit for Omega Shot.
- Purple and yellow: Extra shot for Phaser Shot.
- Pink and aqua: Faster shooting for Rapid Shot.
- Yellow and red: Faster sprint.
- Red: Tenacious Hypo nukes clowns.
- Red and aqua: Tri Shot fires five lasers.
5. Workshopping new boss mechanics
With a lot of those pesky performance issues out of the way, we’re now moving onto figuring out better boss mechanics for the Jugularnauts, something we’ve been wanting to do for awhile now!
In the original version of Circus Interstellar the Jugularnaut boss fights were all about dodging his movement patterns and avoiding the clowns that were spawned in during the battle. This was pretty fun in itself and could still be difficult at times. However, we always felt that the boss fights lacked something to set themselves apart from each other while also making the fights even more challenging.
So we set to plotting out some cool abilities for each boss to add some more pizazz to the fights and have come up with some things that we will share with you guys as soon as we implement them into the game.
Keep an eye out for that in a future blog!
We’re stoked to see this game improve as much as it has, and we cant wait to see what it evolves into by the next blog!
Stick around and see for yourselves! 😉
-Matthew and Stephan Hanewinckel; Co-owners of Ettinsoft LLC
We hope to see more of you creatures in the discord. 🙂
