System Update | Pre-Alpha Version 0.9.1 (Stable)
Hi everyone, hope you are all doing well.
Today I'm bringing you a purely technical update. I’ve spent the past few weeks focused on resolving the biggest bottleneck in the game's development: code scalability. As a solo dev, keeping the code clean is the only way I can deliver new content without breaking everything.
Until the last patch, the project ran on a centralized structure that was collapsing as the story progressed. To give you an idea of the situation:
The Dialogue Monolith: The old DialogueManager script had surpassed 20,000 lines of code because it attempted to handle text, variable states, and triggers all at once. To resolve this, I completely migrated all of the game's dialogues over to Ink (the narrative engine), separating content from core code.
Overloaded Objects: There was no centralized scenario manager. If you clicked a door to change rooms, that specific object's script packed over 50 lines of if and switch statements trying to check the current day, read emails, or player flags.
Initialization Order: Systems frequently conflicted within Unity over which one would initialize first (race conditions).
The New Modular Structure
To fix this definitively, I designed a new architecture based on Subsystem Composition and organized the game into specialized managers:
ManagerBase: A master class I created to dictate the exact initialization order of each component, eliminating Unity's conflicts.
DialogueManager: The entire dialogue system has been restructured. The manager is now lightweight and processes text directly through Ink. By leveraging Ink's native tagging system, the manager can now trigger complex gameplay events and changes in a clean, modular way, moving all dialogues over to the new UI.
EventManager & EventConditionService: A centralized service layer that cleanly validates mission conditions and triggers in isolation—such as checking current energy levels or whether Alex is wearing the appropriate outfit for the occasion.
ScenarioManager: Automatically handles environment transitions and scene loading.
About the Save System
Saving remains disabled in this build, exactly as it was in previous patches. I chose not to waste time trying to fix it within the old structure, knowing it would be discarded. Now that the new modular foundation is ready and stable, rewriting and reactivating the save system under this new secure standard is my absolute focus for the next patch.
In practice, build 0.9.1 doesn't bring visible content, but it is the most stable Alpha version of the game so far. The code is now clean and ready to receive the upcoming chapters much faster and more securely.
Thanks for your continuous support!
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