Minor Patch- Speedrun Timer Size
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Returned the Speedrun timer to its normal size
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Returned the Speedrun timer to its normal size
Hello everyone!
We've been quiet working on our next big project, but had the time to make some big updates behind the hood of the game.
First, we fixed a bug that was causing some players screens to go black when you hit "reset to defaults".
We apologize for taking so long with this one - it was a bit of a doozy to find.
As the team was working on an Xbox patch, we ran into some file size limits causing us to fail our Xbox submission. In order to get Get To Work's new patch onto Xbox, the team had to really dig deep and find some smart ways to reduce file sizes, and look for new optimizations - And as luck would have it, those optimizations have carried over to our steam build.
Instead of 5GB, the build should now be in and around 2.7GB! (Not exactly half, but 54.32% of the original size felt less sexy of a number).
Get To Work is built in the Unity game engine, and as with any engine, there are a lot of optimizations and tools at your disposal - the trick is knowing when and how to use them to maximize performance.
Unity's Addressable system uses asynchronous loading to support loading from any location with any collection of dependencies. By packing asset bundles more efficiently, Addressables provides a simple way to make your game more dynamic. \
If you don't care about the nitty gritty- if assets such as textures, models, and audio are organized thoughtfully, Addressables helps the engine avoid unnecessary duplication, which greatly reduces the final build size, and improves memory usage by loading and unloading content on demand.
Without adding or removing any files, you can see that some smart organization can drop the file size from 4.4GB to 0.43GB!
Fair warning: Technical art is not our strong suit, so a majority of this was trial and error.
Shader keywords are compile-time switches used by Unity’s shader system to enable or disable specific shader code paths. They let a single shader support multiple feature combinations (for example: with or without normal maps, shadows, fog, detail textures) without writing separate shaders.
During the build, we noticed the engine had over A MILLION keyword combinations (this is not normal). And unfortunately due to our lech of tech-art experience, we still don't know why we had that many combinations. But through trial and error, we tried stripping our certain keywords to reduce the total combination of shaders.
Probably not. Let's be real, Call of Duty is anywhere from 80GB to 200GB depending on the bundles you've installed, so 2.5GB isn't that big of a deal, but the team was pretty excited to see some big size savings and i thought it'd be fun to share!
You may see some tiny run-time performance improvements (specifically around loading levels), but ultimately they'll likely be minimal.
It's been just over a year since the release of Get To Work! To anyone who has played the game (or is currently playing), we just want to thank you all for an amazing year! We're excited to share what we're cooking up next... stay tuned.
Stephen & The Isto Team
Hi Everyone,
First off, a HUGE congratulations to Brandwagen who beat the tower in an impressive 6 hours after launch to win The Doinkler Special Competition.
We've made some minor adjustments to the tower (mostly fixing geometry where players were getting soft locked). The tower remains mostly the same, and most players shouldn't notice the changes.
The Speedrun Community has requested we add a timer for the Doinkler Special, and as such, we've added a timer that is based on height!
We've added 3 quality settings (Low, Medium, High). These give very minor improvements to performance, but for those struggling to get good framerates in the main game, this should help a bit!
Fixed a bug where the attempt counter would reset when opening level select multiple times.
Removed "The Doinkler Special Competition" button in the title screen
Thanks to everyone for your support!
Happy Climbing
Stephen & The Isto Team
Rules for the $500 Competition
With new gameplay elements, two new game modes and a superstar cast of streamers to voice in a brand new story that follows Richard Bankman as he attempts to take on The Doinkler Portfolio.
Unlike the main game, we wanted players to experience the game in a less "punishing" way and enjoy the controls and movement, which is why we built individual levels!
With a restart button!
For the main game, we really had to tone down the difficulty of the jumps, because of how brutal the falls were, but with a restart button, you can instantly retry and learn how to properly hit the obstacles without having to climb all the way back up.
Which means, we were able to bump the difficulty up by like…. 300%.
Some of the levels are HARD.
But don't worry, you can skip ahead if you get stuck and play the first level of each world.
Compare your best times (or number of attempts) with your friends!
Across 62 new levels, with a ton of new mechanics and variety of challenges!
After the initial release, we got such an overwhelmingly positive response to the story, that we just couldn't help ourselves.... and wrote an entirely new story (that has just as much narrative as the main game)
And with the help of some of our favorite streamers to voice in the game, you'll be able to experience the story of Richard Bankman as he takes on The Doinkler Portfolio!
But that's not all! We decided to keep going and add a SECOND game mode. Introducing...
This is the Doinkler Special, a giant tower that uses most of the pieces from The Doinkler Portfolio, but removes all of the forgiveness of the restart button, because we figured, if you fall, you can always practice in The Doinkler Portfolio and then come back.
We really wanted to challenge the most hardcore players and because of that, there's way less recovery
(Don't get me wrong, there's still some, we're not animals). Everyone will still be able to make some progress but the further you go up, the less recovery there is.
You'll also notice that we're using this basic prototype texture all throughout the tower, and there's a reason for this - The DLC is free.
But more importantly, the tower is way more performant because we don't have to load textures, and more importantly baked lightmaps. The tower runs faster than the main game, with no loading hitches despite having way longer sightlines.
Most big tower rage games just have stuff pop in and out, but I think we've done a good job of optimizing it to look seamless.
Since this level was made to be nearly impossible, we figured it'd be more fun to see how far you can get, and rub it in your friends' faces.
So with steam leaderboard integration, you can compare both in the main menu and in the world how far you and your friends have gotten.
And of course, we want to build some hype for the DLC, so we're excited to announce, The Doinkler Special Challenge - A $500 dollar cash prize for the first person to complete the entire tower from start to finish live on stream.
If you're curious, click the link above to learn more
As always, a huge thank you to everyone who has played the game, and continues to support our small indie team.
Good luck and have fun!
Stephen & The Isto Inc Team
Players were asking us for individual levels, and we have delivered!
This FREE DLC follows Richard Bankman, a middle manager tasked with trying to make the impossible financial investment portfolio - "The Doinkler Portfolio" profitable.
We'll be posting more details on launch date and you can learn more about it In our Vlog:
But the focus of this post is to let players know about:
Tell your friends! The competition starts when the DLC launches on Monday, July 14 @ 11 am MST (6 pm UTC)
I've covered the basic details here
But i wanted to spell out the rules in much finer detail well in advance.
All gameplay must be done live
The entire run must be available to watch after completing the tower
e.g. Twitch deletes VOD's after 14 days, so make sure to save and upload them if the competition takes longer than 2 weeks!
The game can be streamed on any platform (Twitch, YouTube) but the Isto Team must be able to view it
If you beat the tower, please show the time live on stream (Twitch does a horrible job of time stamping and this helps us verify in case there is a tie)
We recommend this link: https://24timezones.com/time-zone/mt
No save scumming
No mods
This includes the practice mod.
We are hoping players can discover the tower organically (rather than flying straight to the top as soon as it comes out). We obviously can't monitor if you use practice mods offline, but we would encourage you do not.
The Doinkler Portfolio is designed to let you practice the elements, so using a practice mod should not give players a distinct advantage.
No changing FPS outside of the game
You can play the game with an uncapped FPS (vsync off) or locked at 60fps (vysnc on)
No slowing down the game
No manipulating the timer
No machine assist
i.e. TAS and auto spam programs (or programs that help you auto spam outside of what we intended)
No egregious exploits that skip most of the tower (like the op/ragdoll skip in the main game)
If you're unsure, feel free to check with us.
If it feels like cheating, it’s probably cheating
Top grabs are allowed
We do feel that top grabs will not play a big part in this competition, which is why we are allowing top grabs
Pausing is allowed
You can close the game and return to it later
Make sure we can view the entire run upon submission
If you find exploits from saving and loading, those are not allowed. The game must act as if you hadn't saved and quit
Join our discord and send us a message!!! When there is a winner we'll be posting both here and in the discord
If you don't have a discord, you can send us an email to [email protected]
I thought it would be fun to try and track some notable players. This isn't official and will be me doing my best to track some streamers attempting the tower. Feel free to take a look!
The DLC launches Monday, July 14 @ 11 am MST (6 pm UTC).
See you there!
Stephen & The Isto Team
We are so excited to share that we have partnered with the spiritual founder of the "Rage Game" genre, Bennett Foddy, and our fellow YouTuber and Rage Game Enthusiast, PontyPants to bring you:
Now you can experience three times the suffering, in this bundle of bald men climbing up tall things!
The Rage Game Starter Pack is the best place to start your journey of suffering, falling, screaming, crying, and laughing.
You can find the bundle on each of our respective Store Pages, or a direct link to the bundle here
Happy climbing,
Stephen & The Isto Team
About
This page aggregates Steam news feeds, patch notes, and developer announcements for Get To Work, sourced from official Steam community posts.
Major updates, balance changes, and seasonal events often correlate with player-count spikes — cross-reference announcements here with the live charts on the main Get To Work statistics page.
Articles link back to Steam for full changelogs. SteamScope refreshes news entries as new posts are published to the game's Steam hub.
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