Since day one Survivalcraft had a large handicap compared to PC block games. Because it was designed to run on a 1st gen Windows Phone, there were a lot of compromises to get acceptable performance. One of the biggest was small visibility range.

Because of heavy optimizations, I could not even add an option to increase it on faster devices without making everything slower.

Here’s good news. This is changing in 1.23. I found a way to allow you to increase visibility range on high-end devices without making the game slower on low-end ones.

Visibility range setting in 1.23

I think increasing the visibility range is a massive step forward for the game. Some of you may not fully agree and would prefer to get a new feature instead. But think: more visibility improves all the existing features. It adds more immersion. Seeing these far off mountain peaks and lakes makes you want to go there and explore.

Foggy 1.22 (top) vs long vistas in 1.23 (bottom)

Creative mode folks should be even more happy. Ever built a Titanic or a Star Wars Imperial Destroyer and could not see all of it? Just wait for 1.23.

In 1.22 visibility range is not even enough to see from the top of a mountain to the bottom of a deep pit. In 1.23 you will easily be able to see full vertical extent of the world.

Of course, this comes at a cost. A fast phone or tablet is recommended for higher settings. If you have an iPod Touch 4G or the first Galaxy S, don’t expect miracles :-)

Finally, here’s a video showcasing the differences:

http://youtu.be/o-0EekxGNSI



Thanks to Frank W. who provided medieval town world and a custom texture pack used in the video and screenshots.