I ran some tests regarding the increase in size if textures are packed in my packages.

For some jpgs I got an increase of 4000%.
So, a texture that had 39Kb has 1,6Mb when packed into the packages.

However, the same texture as bmp doesn't increase that much when packed.
The bmp file has 1,2Mb before and 1,6Mb when packed into the package.

It actually makes sense since dark basic has to get rid of the compression
before the textures are usable. The end size is the same after all.

So there are basically two options:

1) I just leave it as is.
That means: If I extract files from the packages, to disk or memory, the cpu won't
have to bother with compressions which saves some processing time. On the other
hand more data will have to be read from the disk, but I can compensate that with
streaming.

2) I try to create some own kind of compression.
Compression isn't really complicated. Basically I search for repeating char-paterns in
the file data and replace them with a smaller chunk of chars to decrease the size.


For now I will definitely leave it as is, but I'll keep the possibility for an own compression
in mind.

All the information regarding story and game mechanics I planed so far can be
found in the "concept.zip" I attached to the first post.

-> concept.zip

In the meantime I got some new ideas but everything has to be planed a bit
more precisely. Until then this is the basic experience I'm heading for.

The actual story is still pretty much non-existent. XD
That means it's not worked out yet.

What I can say at this point is that I want to design the game in two modes:

1) Story Mode
Story driven game with unique characters and situations.

2) Run Mode
Try to finish the game as fast as possible.
No story no scripting ... everything's random.

Btw.: I'm working on a compression-prototype right now. XD

EDIT:
I created a small prototype of a compression and got some nice results.
It's crashing before the file is completely stored in the package, but the
intermediate results are pretty promising.

The process always crashes around 70%-80% leaving the unfinished file.
I can't figure out why it's crashing ... but I'll try to get some help on the dark basic forum.

The unfinished file from the jpg file has 143Kb and crashes at 77%.
However, If I extrapolate that to 100% the file could be around 175Kb.
The jpg file is 19Kb. So it's increased by 821%. This is still a lot but without this simple
compression it has 1.6Mb XD, so it actually decreases by 837%.

The compression seems to work much better with the bmp file.

The bmp file ( same image as the jpg ) has 1.2Mb packed with the compression it goes
down to 72Kb @ 79%, extrapolated to 100% something around 87Kb, which is actually
a decrease of around 1279%. So bmp would definitely be the recommended choice here.

Nice. Well, the music should be a lot darker :D.
I'm adding you to the list.
I have a basic direction for the music in mind, but I guess I should make
something myself as an example.

I will probably play around with music today.
I got my hands on the Magix Production Suite with tons of sound effects and stuff.
No further comments XD.

Maybe I can get something together how I recently imagined it.
I know I already posted a track somewhere ... but to be honest I don't like it very much anymore. XD



I'm always open for ideas. Just send me an email or whatever.
Common ideas can be posted here I guess.

Well, there is one thing to say regarding the story:
I want the game to have a direct feeling instead of a big story.
XD What I want to say is: I don't want to have a hollywood story where the player is the super hero guy :D.

Instead I want to make the fights and everything relying as awesome, and on high diffulty challenging, as possible.
For example I'm planing to play the music in different layers to have highlights in the music when you hit
someone or get hit.

So, back to the story:
It should contain rather small goals and situations.
Well, atm they should be limited to "the block".

I'm imagining various different little stories for many floors in an apartment block, which would surely create
a pretty oppressive atmosphere. Here and there some informations about the world outside are fine but no precise infos.