Devlog: Bug Fixes, Primaries, Saving and Loading

Happy Saturday Evening!

The gameplay showcase will be late tonight because it was much larger than I was expecting, and I'm currently editing it. No screenshots for today as I don't have much time left. However, you will see the features I did today in the gameplay showcase, which I will upload within the next 3 to 4 hours, hopefully.

Performance Changes 

• Drastically Reduced File Sizes: Save files are now a lean 10-20mb, down from a high of over 500 MB.
• Fast Speeds: Game creation and saving processes are now much faster.
• Massive Memory Reduction: I've crushed major memory usage issues. By implementing lazy loading for assets like themes and name data, and cleaning up unused data, I've significantly lowered the game's memory footprint, especially when starting up or loading a campaign.
• Smarter Data Structures: I've optimized how the game handles politicians. AI candidates and department heads now only contain essential data, with their full profiles generated only when necessary (like in an election against you) or with specific simulation calculations. All their important data for different levels of simulation are preserved, though.

New Feature: Primary Elections

You can now run in your party's primary to secure the nomination before the general election. This feature is fully integrated with the live election night view, allowing you to watch the results come in. For now, the US Presidential Primary is a more generic version, but the foundation is set for deeper mechanics in the future.

Saving & Loading

The save system has received a major overhaul to make it more robust and user-friendly.

• Name Your Campaigns: You can now give each of your save files a unique name, making it easier to manage your political careers.
• New Load Game UI: The entire load game screen, including the delete confirmation modal, has been improved for a cleaner experience.
• Playtesting: After extensive playtesting and fixing numerous bugs related to what data was (or wasn't) being saved, the system is now highly reliable (probably).

UI and Quality of Life Upgrades

• Overhauled Politician View: The modal for viewing a politician's profile is now a full-screen experience with dropdowns to navigate different details. You can also now view a politician's seat history, tracking their career path through the offices they've held.
• Legislative Committees Added Again: You can now view all legislative committees from a new dropdown within the main Government Offices screen.

Bug Hunting

A huge part of preparing for a public demo is finding and fixing bugs. I've fixed a few of them.

• Fixed: Numerous potential memory leaks that could occur when loading a campaign or returning to the main menu have been plugged.
• Fixed: The political party popularity line chart now displays historical data correctly instead of showing the same value for every month.
• Fixed: A bug preventing bills from being processed if you used the skip button on the vote alert has been resolved.
• Fixed: Newly appointed government office holders will now correctly have their names displayed.
• General bugs have also been fixed.

The Final Push for the Demo

With the demo so close, the immediate focus is on polishing, playtesting, and fixing any remaining high-priority bugs to ensure the best possible experience for everyone on the free demo release day.

The free demo comes out on September 30th. I should have fixed most bugs by then, but if there are any known bugs that I see, I will make sure to make them known for the free demo as a means to set expectations. The game has been in active development for a total of, I think, 3 months now? So we will see how things go when we get closer to the official release in December.