Edition 34, Week 44: "From all Perspectives"

Welcome to another edition of the Sunday Report! As you might know, I finally killed letterboxes yesterday. As I see it, it's another big achievement for Asobi. Milestone even!

I will of course not just stop there, there's much more to tweak and create and I'm still not out of ideas, which you'll see in the coming weeks.

And of course we have the launch of GTA 6 coming in about 2 weeks. Have to make sure everything's prepared!

Development

Spatial Fill mode

It took some time but Spatial Fill mode is incoming, and you can see it in action right here! Although I'm still fine-tuning it, I do believe it's shippable in its current state. It did, however, turn out a bit differently than I originally envisioned, but I did notice it's now my favourite way to play on an iPhone: it just works.

For those wondering what it exactly is, well: Spatial Fill mode is a new way to play your game. It converts the video stream to a fullscreen experience while keeping that native feel. It does this while making the fewest sacrifices to quality, by making sure the game image doesn't distort, squash, squeeze or lose any essential info.

The trick is done by using on-device machine learning and some clever visual processing to keep the game looking good and feeling completely native while making use of the full screen.

Oh and it works for multiple aspect ratios like 4:3, 21:9 etc.

Android TV

I'm working on the final touches of the interface and doing some final testing to get the Android TV version ready for launch.

I'm aiming for either an October 29th or 30th release, kinda depends on how my schedule works out. More soon when we get closer to its release!

iPhone Duo

As you might've seen, Asobi has been iPhone Duo compatible since the device released. And now that I finally have the device in hand I've gone to work to have it make use of all the cool new features.

I kind of don't want to spoil anything yet, but I'll preview some of the new features when we get closer to the release of the next update.

I can promise you that you won't be disappointed!

The updates;

Asobi for Apple

Besides the aforementioned Spatial Fill mode being released with version 1.6.1, there's also some real nice upgrades coming for iPhone Duo and Vision Pro users.

Vision Pro will be getting a CRT monitor upgrade, SharePlay multiplayer and some new stuff 👀. Also, I might add Spatial Fill mode here as well for some 21:9 action.

Also work has started on updating the Apple TV interface to the original idea I had before I released Asobi a year ago.

It won't be long: version 1.6.1 is planned for week 44.

Asobi for Steam

I'm almost done with the next version for Steam, just needs more testing. There are quite a few quality-of-life updates coming in and quite a list of bug fixes. Again thank you all for reporting in! Although I would prefer to add the new Spatial Fill mode to the next update, I don't really feel like delaying the update much longer.

The next version is planned for week 44.

Asobi for Android

I haven't managed to get the update out yet, I kinda got distracted by the progress I made with the Spatial Fill mode. The plan is to add this as well to the next Android release.

Also, I've just finished work on being able to control the interface with your controller, which was hell but also great.

Plan is to release the next update in week 44.

Asobi for Meta Quest

I'm currently at work doing some performance updates in relation to frame pacing and some stability updates. Once that's done I'll continue getting the Xbox controller mode to activate and will push the release out.

Plan is to release it in week 44.

Midori for Apple

I submitted version 1.1 last Thursday evening; sadly it's been stuck in review ever since.

It has the new Virtual Controller 2.0, 2D to 3D conversion optimisations, iPhone Duo support and much more!

Also, the new Spatial Fill mode will be added with version 1.1.1 among others.

In closing

Thanks for reading! Keep your bug reports and feedback coming.

Also, I'll be in London again next month with some more interesting talks lined up 👀. Maybe time to do a meetup? Let me know what you think!

Have a great Sunday!