Savage Defense 4. I've been neglecting the only project that actually proved to be successful out of all the other unfinished projects of mine. V3 had a lot of new features but was buggy and lagged. It was basically Windows Vista. Looked shiny but could have been coded better for optimization. My main focus on V4 is performance and ease of use at the moment. I've been recoding all the new features that came with V3 and making sure that the majority of the resource consuming effects and processing has been optimized. So far so good.

My last blog about Savage Defense had some preview screenshots of the terrain system and GUI that's being added to the game. Instead of dynamic surface layered terrain, I'm pre-rendering the terrain and saving them as a background image. That relieved some resources. I've also modified the turrets since the last preview. The fake 3D code that I was using caused some lag so, I've modified it a bit. I introduced paths for the enemies in the last blog as well and have developed a very fast path finding trick, not complex but it gets the job done faster than what I had before. So the lag caused by vast amounts of monsters on the screen is gone. Those are the speed issues I've taken cared of so far.

As for bugs, the main area of concern was located in the GUI. I had some issues with the hot-key system in V3 and so in v4, hot keys will be more functional than ever making it easier on laptop users. The dependence on the mouse is too great for touch-pads in my opinion. In versions 1-3 the turret stacking glitch continued to exist and so I'll be working on making the turret slots more efficient in turret checking.

Things that need to be added, more stuff to buy. I've heard this countless times that after wave 30 there's not much to spend your money on and things start to get slow. For this reason, I'm adding a 5th level to all turrets. It will be an elite turret. I've also begun to add the players' attack system. In which players get to send waves towards the enemies. Money will then be spent on both the player's defense and waves to break their enemy's defense. Keeping the opponent on their toes with a balanced attack will ease the attack they send against you. Strategy on what to buy will take place. Use your money wisely.

Well, that's what I have for you today. When I get a little more content in the game, I'll post some more previews. There's not much to be seen since the last blog due to most of the changes being performance fixes. I might make a video for the next preview. I haven't done a video in awhile. I'm due for one. I'm making a site for the game as well. I need a trailer for it anyway, so we'll see.

New avatar and profile banner/layout. Thought it went better with the new V3 theme.

tl;dr: read for has benefits. should try more often for educated. yes. :)