Devlog #8: Saving, Loading and Visual Polish

Introduction

Welcome back to another devlog! This devlog will be covering the saving/loading and extra visual polish. The new lighting system gives the game an extra level of mood to the game and really make the exsisting visual pop more, and the saving and loading system another esential feature.

Saving and Loading

The new save system is built on Unity’s player prefs system. The current save system only saves two areas of data firstly the level progress (stars earned) and the settings (Vsync, screen mode, FPS, etc.). When you quit, a single player prefs record captures it all, and on boot everything is restored to the quit state.

By using player prefs it allows for potentail updates/expansions to the saving and loading system to be painless and intergrate seamlessly with exsisting save files.

Visual Polish

With the save system now in, the focous shifted to making the world actually feel and look more alive. I started by adding a post processing component onto every camera. A custom colour correction pushes saturation of the colors making them feel like they pop a little more, while a vignette keeps the eye anchored on centre screen without it feeling overly filtered filter. There is a noticable diffrence in the feel of the game now that there is a little more to focus and draw the players attention.

Next came the migrating the project to Unitys URP (universal render pipeline). Every material had was relinked and moved to the new system. Next real time 2D lights were added to make the levels look more visually astetic and feel of the game.

What’s Next?

With the saving and loading now implemented as well as the new lighting overhall the game is really coming together and isnt far off been a finished protoype, however there are still a few thing left to do as listed below:

• Bug testing
• Level building
• Firsttime tutorial

And thats the end of devlog #8, Thanks for reading and as always send any feedback or comments you have. See you in the next devlog.