Crisis Response Windows game

Sandbox 7

It's been a while again since the last article. I didn't write about the previous update but I'll skip that and focus on the new one. If you've been following you'll know what's happened, and if you play the game it contains all the previous stuff too so there's nothing to miss. Here's the new sandbox:

Performance improvements

The new update focuses on performance improvements. It's been going through some rounds of testing already and in terms of performance it looks like a good improvement over the last release. Many have voiced problems with performance in the previous versions and I think it will be a bit better now.

What did I change to improve performance then? I have rebuilt many parts of the resource management so that I have better control over how many objects of certain kinds can exist at the same time. On top of that I've redesigned some parts of the menus and user interface, to make the performance settings more understandable. I think that will help as well.

Performance benchmark

Entirely new is the benchmark feature. The benchmark is a small level that puts three characters through a hail of bullets several times over, with steadily increasing settings. The frame rates are recorded and in the end the game suggests settings that should result in good performance.

Blood streams

There is a new in-game feature too. I've made it so that blood leaving wounds under high pressure form streams. The streams turn into particles as they fly.

When the streams hit the floor they bounce off and break down into particles. It creates a kind of splashing effect.

Simple dismemberment

I've also implemented a very simple dismemberment that is triggered by the fragmentation grenades. It's very basic so I expect to improve it more later.

Thank you testers

I want to thank everyone who helped me test the release. Throughout the testing I changed things with the blood several times as you may have noticed. There are many parameters that make up how the blood looks and functions, and the final result is a compromise between a number of different things. I still don't feel I've found the perfect blend of those factors so I will keep tweaking. You can expect it to change again in the future.

Thanks for reading. Try the new sandbox and please share it around!