From 4pm BST onwards TODAY, you will have the opportunity to:
-PLAY A FREE DEMO of Off Grid
-Secure your copy from as little as £8 (SUPER EARLY BIRD - it's a steal!)
-Get your name or handle in the game
-Help shape the game via our FIRST ACCESS program!
-Snag some official OFF GRID merch
Hi all - Steve here. I’m a programmer working on Off Grid - and I’ve had the pleasure of working on save systems recently. :)
Ha! This is really one of the short straws of game development. When I was at Sony, it was almost a rite of passage; these were the days that not only did you have to save and load, but you were responsible for ensuring things didn’t die when the memory card (remember those?) was pulled out mid-operation.
Prior to this month, we had the beginnings of a save system in place, but were aware that certain things didn’t seem to be working quite as they should - so I took a look.
What I discovered was that we kept a save in memory as well as writing it to disk. This is a good thing - loading a checkpoint is faster. But a side effect was that there were two code paths to reinstating a save - to load it from disk, or to just reference the save data as game data. The danger with this is that the in-memory data can reference ‘live’ game data, which means the save on disk diverges with this during gameplay. Lots of copying data later, the bits that weren’t working quite correctly now seem much happier.
The other work I’ve done was on a system level. Saving and loading requires making a list of all the files available. Previously, we loaded all of these into memory - but as we cannot know how big they’re going to be, this will eventually cause us all sorts of problems. I’ve instead created a header at the top of each save file, containing the information we need to present to the player. Load the first 1000 bytes or so of each file, grab the header, close the file.
Saving and loading done then? Certainly not! We will still have new data that needs to be added to our save structure, and I bet there are still some bugs in there. But I’m confident that we are on firmer ground than we were a month ago.
Yes, you read that right! Off Grid snagged a pretty sweet accolade over the four days at EGX: Eurogamer staff rated Off Grid as one of the top ten games on the show floor. Read the article in full here.
Here’s the write up on Off Grid (complete with a pretty accurate description of Rich and his conversational skills!):
While that accolade was certainly the highlight of our EGX experience this year - plenty of other great things happened over the four days:
Off Grid’s Twitch Debut
Thursday kicked off with an interview and live play through of Off Grid on the Twitch Stage. Rich talked to CaffCast and Spamfish in a livestream to over 2000 viewers - a first for both Rich and the game! Watch it here.
We now have our own twitch channel - be sure to subscribe! Rich took the opportunity to do some behind the scenes streaming while at EGX, so go have a gander at those if you’re interested. In the future, we hope to use it to do playthroughs of Off Grid, talk in more depth about our development process, and perhaps about some of the inspiration and influences behind the the game itself.
The Geek Show
Pontus (not often seen on camera!) was interviewed by The Geek Show for their podcast and YouTube channel. Get your glimpse of one of the powerhouses behind Off Grid here:
Friendly banter with the NCA
The National Crime Agency (NCA) had a stand at EGX and were handing out helpful information to all inquisitive passersby - including literature on the Computer Misuse Act and an NCA challenge.
Here’s a little closeup of their handout:
Big Red Barrel Duet with Yucatan Game
Fellow indie dev and Leftfield Collection exhibitor, Joe Bain, and Rich Metson were interviewed by the kind folks at Big Red Barrel.
They’ve put together a special EGX podcast, jam packed with all their favorite games. Listen in at about 56 minutes for the very best bits! ;)
What else did we love about EGX?
You’re right, we already said the highlight was being picked as ONE OF THE TOP TEN GAMES OF THE SHOW! :D That’s totally true - it is awesome.
But what else did we love about EGX and our participation in Leftfield Collection? Watching YOU play the game!
It’s always a treat to see how players make their way through the latest build - taking note what they find interesting and engaging, and what might be quickly passed over.
This year marked ten years of Leftfield at EGX - that’s ten years of showcasing great indie games alongside all the big hitters - thanks to David Hayward for all the effort supporting indie developers!
