MANTA Work in Progress
My goal is to make bug fixes and issues as transparent as possible. Here's my working list of known issues, bug fixes, and my QA checklists.
1.0.2
- Improved considerable enhancement of HUD radar to make the way it works much more intuitive; blips moved away from the edge of the screen so that they don't disappear under fingers and they're more salient; blips fade away as the object they indicate approaches the center of the screen; waypoint blips throb subtly
- New major improvements to mission feedback, including explicit feedback on waypoints, targets destroyed, etc.
- New displayed score is animated subtly (takes 2s to catch up to actual score)
- New more targets are worth points, and points scored for a given target are displayed
- Improved upgraded to Unity 3
- Improved full support for iPhone 4 retina display
- Improved all shaders better optimized for Mobile (Unity 3)
- Fix found and fixed pathing bug in level 1 that was confusing the AIs
1.0.1
Status: in development (the idea is to move high priority items from the 1.1 list to here, along with anything urgent that crops up)
1.0.1 should get pushed into the queue tomorrow (9/8) Monday 9/12.
- Fix trimmed audio clips to minimum durations and downsampled them. This should eliminate sound-related performance issues. (Filed under "bone-headed mistakes".)
- Improvement radar blips are now scaled and have margins scaled for higher resolution (iPad and iPhone 4) displays.
- Fix music is now switched on by default.
- Improvement debug menu removed.
- Improvement somewhat improved explosion effects, but nothing terribly spectacular.
- New positive audio feedback when clicking UI buttons. (Soft, low beep for acquisition; louder, high beep for lock on.)
- New audio feedback for fire control acquiring and locking on targets.
- Fix terrain texture for level 1 is now at correct (higher) resolution.
Final 1.0 Changes
Status: in App Store approval queue.
- Fixed Light Fighters too tough (also made Heavy Fighters a tad easier)
- Fixed Best difficulty not stored?
- Fixed L2 Ocean rig MIA as target
- Fixed L2 Drones in short supply
- Fixed L3 Hard is too easy.
- Fixed L3 Shield is broken (needs to be criticaled).
- Verified L7 Check shield dome
- Fixed L4 Ocean rig needs to be objective
- Fixed SSNs are way tough
- Closed Flying rig needs blip
- Fixed L6 Beneath needs more fog
- Fixed L7 Chasm too dark
- Fixed L8 Caldera too dark
- Fixed L8 Final movie
- Added Victory Movie (when you finish final level)
- Fixed PSD icons have crap alpha channels
- Fixed Various Rigs incorrectly marked as static (prevented radar and turret animations)
Optimization Checklist
- Internal Profiling
- Optimize Garbage Collection (force GC before start of level and on pause, perhaps?)
- Desired Framerate AppController.mm --> #define kFPS 30
- Desired Framerate AppController.mm --> #define kAccelerometerFrequency 60
Unity-Specific
- Occlusion Culling
- Batching
- Checking Rendering Stats (looking good)
- Model Optimization (ideally <300 verts for moving objects for dynamic batching)
- Optimize Physics Time Intervals (0.1s timestep, 0.06s FixedUpdate)
- useGUILayout = false; (note that we make zero use of GUILayout)
- Stripping Level — currently using maximum stripping
- Script Call Optimization — fast with no exception handling
- Audio Optimization (reduce sampling rates etc.)
Level QA Checklist
- Verify all objectives are doable
- Rebake if required
- Mstch lighting to bake
- Verify ceiling is reasonable
- Verify telemetry region is reasonable (Note: not yet implemented)
- Verify enemy behavior is interesting
- Check spawns & enemy patrol route(s)
- Verify fog settings
Bugs / Issues / Suggestions
- New Could probably use icons on the screen for touch controls (just a hint, perhaps)
- Fixed Pause Menu buttons block view of some control positions
- Fixed Main light lens flare still visible underwater. Vary lens flare intensity with depth?
- New Variable fog color / lighting while underwater?
- New High Scores, Best Times, Level Completions, etc. need to be implemented
- Improvement Improve player collision behavior
- Fix non-required mission targets are displayed more faintly
- New Button in main menu links to website
- Fix _bestDifficulty now being correctly displayed
- Fixed Generators in tropical vacation don't lose beam after being destroyed. Also too large.
- Fixed Destroyed objects with attached spawns (e.g. launch domes, carriers) continue to launch.
- Really, Truly Fixed Staggered fire is still iffy (is this a framerate issue?)
- Improvement if music is switched off then Manta should allow play iPod music to play without interruption.
- Improvement All levels now have "patrol paths" (linked waypoints) designed to make the enemies have interesting stuff to do, especially when not in combat. This (IMO) improves enemy behavior considerably. (I've been sorely tempted to rethink everything in "arcade game" terms, i.e. with scripted behaviors for all or most enemies, but that would be a different game.)
- Improvement Manta's missiles and cannon should be considerably easier to hit stuff with.
- New Difficulty levels implemented (medium difficulty increases target hps and required targets, hard increases target armor and hp and adds more required targets).
- Fixed Optional targets incorrectly displayed after completing a level until you switch away.
- Fixed Staggered firing of Manta's guns can fail (still!) — need to rejig linked launchers to that the primary launcher explicitly fires the linked launcher[s]. Slaved weapons should be set to "off" (and automatically do so now).
- Fixed? On new install defaults to "level 0" (non-existent level). Fixed by selecting another level, but disturbing. Reset does NOT fix it. (Appears to have been an initialization race condition where Game_Manager loads the current level before Menu sets it.)
- Fixed Annoying UI rotation animation
- Fixed Manta rolls excessively — reduce to 80°
- Fixed Water UV animation is over-the-top — eliminate or make it subtle
- In Progress Heavy and Light fighters need loving, they're not doing much and they sit at weird angles
- Rejected Toss one of the fighter designs and replace it with one of the more different and attractive (and unused) designs.
- Fixed Floating Rigs need to be non-rigidbody / fixed orientation / something.
- Fixed Get rid of POV switch at high altitude
- In Progress Figure out source of explosion hiccup - eliminate double explosions?
- In Progress Tropical Vacation sucks performance-wise — possibly make water opaque and split terrain into above and below water, switching off rendering of terrain on the other side of water.
- Implemented (mostly) Interface refresh — Health / Energy Bars, Buttons
- Implemented iPad — layout, glass joystick, etc.
- Fixed Health / Energy Bar, Scores etc. aren't quite right on iPad
- Fixed Pause menu buttons obscure useful information.
- Fixed? Outer touch rings are too small on iPad (and possibly elsewhere).
- Fixed Crosshair size is too small on iPad (and, presumably, iPhone 4 at full resolution)
Content Issues
- Fixed Caldera is still too fracking dark
- Verified OK Are light/heavy fighters actually shooting? Work on their behavior which is still kind of lame.
- Reverted BBs etc. seem to be running aground a lot. Minimum thrust for surface vessels seems to be a bit of a problem.
- Fixed Verify the new ocean rigs are working (they seem kind of borked)
- Verified OK Where are the light fighters in the chasm?
- Test Chasm is too freaking dark and might benefit from some fog too
- Test Caldera is too freaking dark
- Fixed Defense towers have weird collision shizzle (turret has no collider?)
- Improved Defense towers are ugly
- New All (8) initial release levels are now populated.
- New About Movie
- New Launch, Telemetry Lost, and Recovery cut scenes rendered and implemented (very quick and dirty, especially the telemetry lost movie. Must remember to install FCP on my new laptop).
- New Music throughout. Music toggle.
- Done Difficulty Levels need to be implemented
- Done Review text / objectives for all missions
- New Level 1 substantially redone.
- Improvement manta cannon should be much easier to hit stuff with now
- Fixed Fighters in Tropical Vacation are still torpid
- Fixed ships are still too fast
- Fixed Floating rig towers "disappear"
- Fixed Floating rigs are too hard to kill
- Fixed Crashing bug in Valley of Death (usually ~10s mark) — null prefab; entire class of error should not recur
Planned for v1.1
- L4 subs still too hard (not updated?)
- Display times as minutes and seconds
- Disable Previous / Next buttons appropriately (implement conditional line items)
- Proceed to next level on completion if at max level and/or better mission select UI
- 1.0.1 Click sound for UI buttons
- 1.0.2 Make radar blips stand out a bit more, especially waypoints
- Misc. cosmetic issues when entering / leaving a level (e.g. flashes of old menus, brief shot of carrier from wrong angle).
- Consider radical changes to AI (fly patterns, formations, etc.)
- 1.0.2 Better event notifications (e.g. mission complete)
- L3 Ogres get stuck too easily. (Improve AIs to allow them to reverse when stuck.)
- Implement secret areas in "What Lies Beneath"
- Implement more interesting targets in "What Lies Beneath"
- 1.0.2 Display waypoint progress
- Need default wreck material (still too brightly lit when tinted)
- 1.0.2 partial Directional hint for next waypoint (in addition to the waypoint itself) ... e.g. a green triangle pointing
- More variety in enemy shots (guided missile? beam? scattergun?)
- Standard bases — aerial, ground (e.g. for skimmers), and submarine.
- Better big explosion particle animation (especially for Manta)
- Consolidate "Secrets" for each level (probably call them the same thing and just pump up their score values).
- Change fire control lock-on mechanism so that it doesn't get two locks in quick succession (in essence, potential lock-ons get queued rather than being individually timed)
- Useful diagram on control settings page (show what the angles are, etc.)
- Lunar Training Run
- User-customizable control sensitivity
- Levels 7 and 10+
- Arming Screen (Upgrades, etc.)
- Camera can drop beneath/behind ground in some cases (use Physics to position camera?)
- Camera dynamic positioning should (a) be further back on iPad and (b) be dynamic
- Training Simulator
- Redo cut scenes with (a) more variety in backdrop; (b) different camera angles for "destroyed" and "telemetry lost"; (c) blurrier backdrop
- Self-destruct vs. Lost Telemetry mission ending
- Smoke column particle to replace smoke particles for burning buildings and wrecks.
- Visual feedback for collision warning
- Improved explosions
1.2?
- Add clouds or skyboxes perhaps
- Skirmish (random mission generator)
- If missiles were tagged "player" the enemies might shoot at them...
- Rebuild using Unity 3
- "Bosses"?
- Shelved Consider implementing a "sound manager" that tracks the number of SFX being used and eliminates those furthest from the player to keep things smooth
Website Development Notes
- Added supersleight jquery plugin (which, hopefully, should make the PNGs work OK on IE6; don't care that much)
- Added support for playing videos using QuickTime where video tag/h264 is not supported.
- Cleaned up site content and removed a bunch of detritus
- Added CSS gradients and tweaked appearance of many elements
- Improved layout of gallery pages, and added a "player" interface
All material on this site is copyright ©2007-2010 Tonio Loewald unless otherwise stated.