Version 0.0.12 - optimization and balance

This is a small update with a large focus on optimization. After many hours (and days) of work, I still haven’t reached the final performance target I want, but a lot of systems are now optimized, pooled, and should run much more smoothly overall.

One noticeable gameplay change is that enemies are now pulled back to their spawn point by a red dot (the spawner projectile) if they wander too far. This prevents all enemies from stacking into a single room and destroying FPS. It also fits the game visually quite well.

Gameplay Changes

• Reduced enemy follow time after losing the player: 10 → 7

• Reduced enemy speed-up timer wait time: 5 → 3

• Reduced chance for enemies to start running: 50% → 30%

• Ranged enemies now sometimes change their attack position

• Reduced radius for calling other enemies: 250 → 150

• Reduced player detection area multiplier: x4 → x3

• Reduced enemy run speed: x2 → x1.7

• Reduced enemy HP:

  • Ghosts: 20 → 15

  • Green enemies: 20 → 17

  • Vampires: 30 → 23

  • Skeletons: 65 → 55

Optimization

• Preloaded OGG audio files instead of loading them at runtime (music changes frequently)

• Added additional audio players for better streaming performance

• Removed enemy-to-enemy collisions (players can no longer push enemies), reducing collision pairs

• Reworked enemy caching using a sleep/wake approach

• Pooled spark and uranium-part projectiles to improve late-game FPS

• Pooled spawner projectiles

• Enemies are now rooted to their spawn positions:

  • If an enemy moves more than 100 meters away, it is pulled back by the spawner

Bug Fixes

• Adjusted the width of several UI buttons

• Fixed blocked entrance in the first room:

  • Increased wall-building delay to avoid collisions with newly spawned objects

As always, thank you for playing and for your feedback. More performance improvements are still coming.