Tainted Grail: Conquest Performance and Map Generation Upgrades

A few days back, Awaken Realms Digital released a new early access update for their Arthurian deck-building RPG Tainted Grail: Conquest that tweaked the game’s map generation algorithms and improved its overall performance. You can find the complete patch notes by following the link above, and here’s a quick overview of the two big items:

Hello, everyone!

We weren't sure whether we'll be able to update the game this week because we're in the middle of implementing A LOT of new systems... but we decided to spend some time preparing a new patch because we just couldn't wait to share some things with y'all!

So the purpose of today's update is to share two main improvements with you: new map generation algorithms and further performance tweaks.

Map Generation

For quite a while now we were pretty unhappy with how our maps worked - the way our maps were generated demanded constant backtracking in order to explore the map. This wasn't all that fun since you had to pick a path, go to its end, and get back when you've seen what's at the end of it.

We've changed that recently and we were blown away by how much more FUN we've had while exploring the map. It was such an improvement that we just had to share it with y'all.

So the change we made is based on generating more connections between paths. Now, instead of constantly going forward and backward, you're just going forwards. Paths are connected, intertwined, and they can diverge into various shapes that create natural labyrinths and, sometimes, also bigger and open spaces.

We've also made some improvements to the core of path generation algorithms so that now you shouldn't get stuck on invisible walls (at least: if it happens, it should be VERY rare).

This whole change means that you can pick paths, skip fights, find some rewards without fighting their guardians, find shortcuts - but also that wyrdcandle management is more important than ever.

And traditionally, we're not done here. We're going to refine this further (for example we're testing hidden paths and dangerous terrain), but we just couldn't wait to share this one step towards what we feel is a good direction with you!

Performance

In short: the game should run better both on ULTRA and LOW details now. We're not done here either, but we'd really appreciate all bits of info you can share with us and all bug reports related to how the game actually plays now. We can't test the game on all possible hardware configurations, obviously, so we'd really appreciate comments on how did this patch influence the game's performance on your machines!