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Testing out WebGL
🕑 Added 2021-01-23 15:48:13 +0000 UTCAt the very start of Love of Magic I set it up to run on WebGL (so, playing embedded in the browser). I quickly abandoned that idea as I spent every free hour building more content. With Book 1 complete, and after chatting with a bunch of other devs, I decided to return to that idea.
WebGL has some advantages, and a lot of disadvantages. Obviously the full Book 1 is ~3.2GB worth. Not something you'll want in a browser game. I chopped it down to 2 acts (ending on the date where Emily learns about Molly); that chops the build size down to 450MB, which is a little more manageable.
The key advantage of WebGL isn't actually the low friction (though that part *is* nice); it's that there's an entire parallel structure of browser-only game sites with a chunk of users who enjoy playing these games, but stay clear of the existing channels. So.. hopefully this is a chance to get the game in front of new players.
The project is a deliberate 'fork' (meaning copying it into it's own little corner and editing it, rather than things like the Steam/non-steam builds, which run off the same build). I had to get quite involved with the project to bring the size down.
Technology also changes; getting audio working was... quite tricky. Videos 'kinda' work, but the interlaced video (in the main menu) had to go. Savegames are totally different, since I have no write-access to the file system. I can store to the browser data-store, but that's highly limited by size, and what you can store (which is why there's no saving inside the computer and Elsewhere, and no screenshots).
I'll likely spend some time fixing bugs, but it's playable now. Initial load is longer than I like, but I worry there's no clean way to deal with that. Let me know what you guys think!
