It was Feburary of 2022 last time Kalling Kingdom received a new version update. Where does the time go?  When the Unity engine announced its runtime fee some time ago (and then went back on the idea), many game developers decided that they would begin taking matters into their own hands. We were among those who did, and began building our own game engine. In addition to the runtime fee announcement itself, we also feel that Unity has presented a number of reasons in the not-too-distant past for why they cannot be trusted as a partner and are not the best decision for our current game and future games, such as abruptly changing their terms of service, merging with a company widely regarded to be a malware software company, and not being transparent with its community.

Introducing the Elega Aperture Game Engine

v41.0 of Kalling Kingdom is the last version that will exist in the Unity engine, and we've instead been in the process of porting the entire game to our new game engine, which internally we call the "Aperture engine." Aperture is designed to be a simple, fast, efficient game engine for 2D games built upon the Raylib library and utilizing OpenGL sprite rendering. The engine itself is not meant to be a grand endeavor on par with the popular game engines you may have heard of like Unity, Unreal, or Godot, but it is meant to be proprietary technology that we have full control over, do not have to pay royalties for, and meets the needs of both Kalling Kingdom and future 2D titles. The engine has minimal world editing support, rendering for fonts and 2D shapes or sprites, audio playback for sound effects and music, input management for game pads and keyboards/mice, and more features on the way. 

On the Elega Corporation company blog, we've outlined other details behind our decision to part ways with Unity - please feel free to read more details about the original decision there.

What Does This Mean for Kalling Kingdom?

We are fully committed to finishing the original vision for our game, including delivering on original promises around the introduction of an early game tutorial mode, item trading into the game, bugfixes,  and improved / additional graphics for the "gameplay canvas" as we call it ( or area in which you build your city). Porting the game out of the Unity engine is a large project and involves a complete and total rewrite of the game's code. With the port being the first step, we will release v42.0 of the game with the fully ported version into the new engine. 

This port will introduce 4K resolution support for 2160x1440 resolution, adding to the current options of 1920x1080 and 1280x720. Sprites in the game currently do not correctly scale to the respective resolutions, and this is being corrected as a part of the port, which will mean less jagged edges, pixelated font rendering, or distorted scaling of sprites that currently exists in some spots within the game.

We do not have much to show just yet but here is a quick preview of a main menu screenshot: this is running in the Aperture engine, and shows the new version number and updated copyright notice.

As a part of this port, font rendering is receiving important attention, and fonts are imported in a way that is more correct for the output pixel resolution, resulting in much higher clarity for text rendered in-engine. We actually found that by taking full control of font rendering, it was easier to get the result we were after than with Unity (which does a few things under-the-hood by default that can interfere with your intentions as a developer).

To be clear: this is not a new game, or a remake, or a remaster, or anything like that. We are simply porting the game into our new custom engine, and then proceeding with the rest of development. All existing customers who purchased the game receive the new version once it's available automatically.

After our v42.0 target, we're going to continue on the original features that we've described in previous updates. Here is a short list we're working on after the port to the new engine is complete:

• People/person "happiness" and other attributes visible from within info panels, as well as options for how to improve their stats
• Market system changes and improvements: additional variability to market dynamics for how rate of return shifts over time, and the introduction of the item system
• Item system: businesses produce and require items, and these items can be traded with other cities. Currently, items don't exist at all in the game, so this will be a major addition!
• Savegames: long overdue and we've talked about it forever but we are working to deliver savegames as well
• Game configuration options: choose the number of turns you want, how much cash you start with, and other options. Currently, every game is always 60 turns with the same starting conditions no matter what. We'd like this to be comprised of player choices.

To those who have played in the past, or just today: we thank you again for experiencing our game and providing your feedback.