Optimizing gameplay for mobile

[Failivrin]

My current project will take over a year to complete, by which time technology will have changed--so this post isn't for discussing technical details of deployment. Instead I'm hoping to collect tips for optimizing game mechanics and design.

Example... I've heard that maps in a mobile game should not exceed 100x100, or you'll run into lag issues.
I've also heard not to place too many events in one map--but how many is too many? Would one lengthy event have the same effect as several common events?
These are just conversation starters. I've heard various tips dropped in the forums, and I'm hoping to collect them in one place!

Q: Given a project in early stages, how would you optimize it for mobile play?

 

[peq42_]

Well i think that basic things to improve the performance would be:
-Not many moving events(and by many, i mean like 10 or so), because they will consume some of the phone's resources(as much as in PC, but phones have a lot less to be used).Invisible/Not-moving events won't lag that much.
-Not many effect plugins(lightning, sounds,particles[or anything that includes "advanced" physics],etc) and by many i mean 2 or more happening at the same time
-No high-size maps(until they make a "fog" system, wich will load and unload the map parts as you move, wich reduces A LOT the lag)
Also, try to put musics and other audios in a light format, so they will load faster and also your game will be lightier(im terms of game size, it may get like 200mb less heavy)

I think that these things may help, idk if there's anything else possible to do(All i told you here i learned from making a game using VX Ace and many RGSS3 Scripts, that made it heavy).I've seen some plugins that improve performance, but i never tested

 

[bgillisp]

Slight Correction to the above: Just few events, period. The engine checks all events on screen to see if they need to be updated, so it doesn't matter if they are invisible or not (same with not-moving), as it still has to do the check regardless.

I'd also recommend keeping it low res. The lower the resolution, the less the game has to draw and the less memory it takes to draw the map.

And, avoid parallax images if you are going mobile. They just take up too much memory. If you are curious how much memory I know you can goggle it, but even a parallax image for a 50 x 50 tile map at 48 x 48 pixels per tile is a lot of memory in MB.

Also, I heard for android the file must be under 100 mb in the end. So keep the entire game under that size if possible. There might be a workaround, but I don't know of it as I don't code for android.

 

[LanceRPG]

This is a good question.

 

[Kuhaku]

Also, I heard for android the file must be under 100 mb in the end. So keep the entire game under that size if possible. There might be a workaround, but I don't know of it as I don't code for android.

Totally not true. Almost all my android deployments are around the 270mb-380mb range and I have no issues stemming from package size or anything like that. I once had a build that was 907MB,and it ran fine. So yeah, not an issue.