System Settings: Filesize optimization

Happy New Year, everyone. I’ve been working away at System Settings throughout this break. Today, I’d like to showcase the tricks I use to reduce my project’s filesize.

Below are three different expressions Weedy can show during the game:

That’s how these sprites were exported at first. The trouble was, the filesize quickly adds up with this method. Instead, I’ve tried the following approach:

The second and third expressions are outputted in PNG format with a transparent background. There is a lot of empty space, but they add nothing to the filesize, because it’s all the same pixel data. Yet, because the sprites’ dimensions remain the same, it’s easy to replace the expressions throughout the game.

Before signing off, let me talk about how the game is progressing. I have decided on a gameplay approach that will separate System Settings from Trauma Center. This of course pleases me a lot. The game’s plot is pretty much there, too. I’ve also been coding the interface here and there.

As a bonus, here is a shot of how the game was originally going to look:

Thanks for reading as always.