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William Chyr
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« Reply #420 on: November 02, 2014, 09:49:30 PM »

DevLog Update #108 - 11/3/2014

Finally starting to get my programming chops back. My approach today was pretty much: if you sit in front of the computer for long enough, you will eventually get some work done...

I got the basic logic of the object pool working:



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William Chyr
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« Reply #421 on: November 04, 2014, 09:29:12 PM »

Devlog Update #109 - 11/4/2014

Object pool logic is working.

Now working on the logic of the water itself. The important thing is that the water needs to be dynamic and respond to changes in the environment.

For example, take a look at this pic:



The yellow/red blocks represent the stream of water. The blocks that are in red are colored this way because they are above "special ground", ground that can move. The rest of the environment remains stationary, but the special ground can shift or destroyed.

As such, the red blocks need to react accordingly and break the stream of water if the ground below is destroyed, like this:



Right now, I have all the red blocks doing a raycast downwards to determine if there is ground below them. I don't think I will have too many special grounds, so I don't think this will be a big hit performance wise.
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William Chyr
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« Reply #422 on: November 05, 2014, 11:17:10 PM »

Alright, I'm changing the name from Relativity to RELATIVITY.

Should probably do R∃LATIVITY but I doubt anyone will be able to spell it correctly...
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« Reply #423 on: November 06, 2014, 03:07:32 AM »

Make this a trilogy just so you can be that guy using a "3" as an "e."
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William Chyr
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« Reply #424 on: November 06, 2014, 04:07:39 AM »

Make this a trilogy just so you can be that guy using a "3" as an "e."

RELATIVITY

RELATIVIITY

R3LATIVITY

REL4TIVITY or RELATIVITY

RELATIVITY

RELATIVITY
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William Chyr
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« Reply #425 on: November 06, 2014, 11:58:04 PM »

Devlog Update #110 - 11/7/2014

Got water readjustment working:



Notice how when the block beneath the water stream disappears or moves back in under the water, the stream readjusts itself and keeps flowing.
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William Chyr
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« Reply #426 on: November 08, 2014, 10:48:03 PM »

Devlog Update #111 - 11/9/2014

Improved the water adjustment algorithm so that it's more accurate at figuring out which water block is the closest to the source.

This is important because the stream only needs to start from this one. If you look at the gif in the previous update, you'll see that the number of red water blocks goes from 3 to 2. This is because it messed up the count of which one was the "smallest" water block that needed to be fixed.



The problem is that the sorting algorithm I'm using to determine the water block with the smallest index number is incredibly inefficient and is causing a drop in frame rate at the point of contact:



Obviously this needs to get fixed.
« Last Edit: November 09, 2014, 01:27:22 AM by Willy Chyr » Logged

William Chyr
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« Reply #427 on: November 09, 2014, 01:30:51 AM »

Devlog Update #112 - 11/9/2014

Been playing around with making fractals in Unity. I have no idea if this stuff will make its way into the game. It might even branch off into its own other game? In any case, I had a lot of fun making these and thought it was too cool not to share.



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William Chyr
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« Reply #428 on: November 10, 2014, 03:35:37 AM »

Devlog Update #113 - 11/10/2014



Finally starting to implement controller support for the UI. Should have done this a long time ago.

It's a real pain doing this with Unity 4.5, as there is no controller support for the GUI.

This problem is actually resolved in Unity 4.6. However, in Unity 4.6, I wasn't able to open my main scene files. Not sure what the issue there is, but not being able to open scenes is kind of a deal breaker for me.

Anyway, ended up switching back to 4.5, and was able to hack together something with GUI.FocusControl.

The code is a total mess and I hate it, but I just need it to be sufficient for demo purposes. Eventually I will have to redo the entire UI for the game anyway.
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William Chyr
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« Reply #429 on: November 11, 2014, 04:02:10 AM »

Devlog Update #114 - 11/11/2014

UI Controller Support



Finally finished controller support for the UI. All in all, it was not very pleasant to work on. A large part of this had to due with the fact that I knew Unity 4.6 already has controller support, but because I'm stuck with 4.5, I had to solve these problems in a rather tedious way.

Most of it I ended up just hard coding, since I knew I was going to have to rewrite at some point anyway.

Sometimes, good enough really is good enough.

Game Feel

Yesterday, I met up with my friend and fellow Chicago-based game developer Kyle to talk about the status of the game. Kyle is actually the second person I showed the game to (the first being my roommate at the time) back in 2012 when I started working on the game. He has seen the game progress over the course of two years, starting when the mechanic had the world rotating instead of the player rotating.

Anyway, one thing that came up during the conversation was the issue of game feel - specifically the movement of the player rotating to switch walls. My attitude towards this aspect of the game was that it was basically just polish, and what I had was sufficient to convey the idea.

In fact, since getting the basic mechanic to work, I hadn't touched this code.

However, it became clear in the conversation that this was something I need to work on, because it's actually an incredibly fundamental part of the game. For so long, I had been focused on puzzle design, pacing, and aesthetics, that I had overlooked the one action that the player performs the most. It feels very clunky to move around and change walls.

I started to look into this, and I think I will spend the next several weeks trying to improve game feel.

One issue that I think contributes to the clunkiness is that after rotation, the player's speed goes to zero:



This happens even if you're holding the joystick forward. I think this abrupt drop in speed contributes significantly to the poor game feel. My first task in improving game feel is to fix this, so that right after rotation, you actually keep your momentum, and there's no unnecessary drop in speed.

Of course, the problem is that I wrote much of this code during the early days of development, back when I was still learning Unity, so it's really hard to figure out exactly what I did or what I was thinking...  Facepalm
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« Reply #430 on: November 11, 2014, 07:13:11 PM »

Make this a trilogy just so you can be that guy using a "3" as an "e."

RELATIVITY

RELATIVIITY

R3LATIVITY

REL4TIVITY or RELATIVITY

RELATIVITY

RELATIVITY

R'LYEHTIVITY?

According to wikipedia:

Quote
R'lyeh is characterized by bizarre architecture likened to non-Euclidean geometry.

Norwegian sailor Gustaf Johansen, the narrator of one of the tales in the short story, describes the accidental discovery of the city:

"a coast-line of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth's supreme terror—the nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh...loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours".

The short story also asserts the premise that while currently trapped in R'lyeh, Cthulhu will eventually return, with worshipers often repeating the phrase

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn: "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming".


So, really...
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« Reply #431 on: November 12, 2014, 07:24:28 AM »

R'LYEHTIVITY?

Perhaps that could be the mythical lost chapter of RELATIVITY, rumored only in the whispers of madmen and crazed scrawls in hidden corners...  Does it even exist?  Can you get there?  *Would you want to go?* Wink

Seriously though, this game is looking outstanding, can't wait to play!  Any chance of VR (Rift/Morpheus)?  This experience in VR would be mind-blowing...

Also, great article here: http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/meet-the-artist-turning-mc-eschers-relativity-into-a-video-game
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William Chyr
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« Reply #432 on: November 12, 2014, 09:53:33 AM »

@Carl Maxwell

I actually did read about R'lyeh at one point! I was trying to find examples of non-euclidean architecture, and that was one of the results that turned up. There are some really fantastic visualizations of the city by different artists.

R'LYEHTIVITY is pretty brilliant. I have to hand that to you  My Word! Everyone would probably be spelling it wrong though.

@acatalept

I really like the idea of an insanely difficult to find level. So difficult that it achieves mythical status. But is that still possible in the age of the internet?

I do think because of the mechanic of the game, and the fact that you can walk on any surface, the potential for getting lost is much great in this game than others, that I could actually get away with hiding something very thoroughly. We'll see. In any case, if I do do that, R'LYEHTIVITY would indeed be the perfect name for it.

Regarding VR, I'm definitely interested, it's just not a priority at the moment. I would probably have to do some work to avoid motion sickness, since the walking on wall movement is not something that comes naturally. Once I get the design and tech of the game worked out, I will start to look into VR more seriously.
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William Chyr
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« Reply #433 on: November 13, 2014, 12:12:20 AM »

Devlog Update #115 - 11/13/2014

RELATIVITY Coming to PlayStation 4!



On Tuesday, I got to announce on the official PlayStation Blog that RELATIVITY will be coming out on the PS4 in 2015!

Needless to say, I'm super stoked about this opportunity, and really looking forward to working with Sony to bring the game to the PlayStation platform. In many ways, this is a childhood dream come true for me.

I'll definitely be sharing more details about this, and will be writing about the process of bringing the game to console here on the devlog. Stay tuned!

Recent Press

In the mean time, I just want to share some recent press coverage on RELATIVITY:

The Creators Project - An Artist is Turning MC Escher's 'Relativity' Into a Video Game

Big Sushi - Interview from IndieCade 2014

PlayStation LifeStyle - “Relativity” Brings M.C.Escher and Isaac Newton Together on the PS4 in 2015
« Last Edit: November 21, 2014, 06:04:18 AM by Willy Chyr » Logged

William Chyr
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« Reply #434 on: November 13, 2014, 01:36:14 AM »

Devlog Update #116 - 11/13/2014

Game Feel

As mentioned in an earlier devlog post, I'm now starting to work on game feel - specifically the movement of walking up a wall.

This is what the first version of the movement looks like in the editor:


And here it is in the game:


This is what I wrote back in early 2013 when I wrote the first prototype. It was sufficient for the purpose of designing puzzles, so I basically left it alone until recently.

There are two problems:

1) It feels very clunky - Notice how the player actually stops right after rotation. This happens even if you're holding down the joystick button or pressing 'W' to go forward. The reason why it happens from a technical standpoint is that during rotation, the code actually takes control away from the player, and rotates the player object. After that, force needs to be reapplied to get the player moving again. Having the player stop and go prevents the movement from feeling like 'flow'.

2) You can't look around during rotation - because control is taken away during rotation, none the player's input has an effect. I've had several playtesters telling me they wish they could look around during rotation, and also having the game control the camera during rotation makes the experience very jarring.

After the conversation with my friend Kyle, I decided it was time to start looking at how I can improve this movement.

I've never played the game Prey, but in my research for first-person games in which players can walk up walls, Prey was one of the few results that turned up. The mechanic is quite different - you can't just walk up any wall, only along certain paths. I won't go into the details, except to show you the movement in action:



I've actually never played Prey before, but look at it how smooth that movement is!

I decided to try something similar by using a quarter pipe, and having the player walk up it to transition between walls:





Of course, the quarter pipe wouldn't be visible in the game.

This looks and feels pretty good. But there is a problem, which is that I can't always afford to have an invisible quarter pipe that big. Right now, that quarter pipe is 2 units tall and 2 units deep. A lot of my geometry is much shorter than that, and the player still needs to be able to walk onto those.





Some issues:

1) The player doesn't begin to feel the rotation until much closer to the wall - visually it doesn't look as good to have the entire screen fill up with a view of the empty wall.

2) Because the radius of the pipe is smaller, the rotation speed is faster - maybe a little too fast. When the quarter pipe is larger, it feels a little better. This could be fixed by decreasing the speed during rotation.

However, another issue with the quarter pipe is that the boxes are now too small to step on:

]

Look at that, the player just goes right over the box, as there isn't enough room for the player to fully rotate. I could make the pipe smaller, but that was make the above problems worse, and there is a lower limit to the size of the pipe. If it's too small, then it's not walkable at all.

The solution is to make the box bigger.



Currently, the boxes are 1 x 1 x 1. I could make them 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5. Of course, this would have repercussions elsewhere with regards to design. Maybe not such a big issue though.

With a bigger box, you can see that it works a little better:


Would definitely need some tweaking to get it right.

However, it's still nowhere near as precise as the previous method of rotation, in which the player would land directly above the box:


Alright, so I still have yet to find the perfect solution. Seems like the methods I'm using are a compromise between precision and feel-goodness.

I'm glad to be finally diving into this aspect of the game though. Looking forward to it evolve over the course of the next few weeks.
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« Reply #435 on: November 13, 2014, 09:03:13 PM »

Congrats on getting this onto Playstation, that's awesome!
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« Reply #436 on: November 14, 2014, 03:45:46 PM »

Maybe you could keep all momentum during the transition- i.e. you're moving forwards when you transition so you move forwards when you're transitioning and then it ends up being like the pipe (curved) wihout actually being curved?

I don't know, I've never played the game so its hard to say what would work?
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« Reply #437 on: November 15, 2014, 06:32:53 AM »

I like the original movement method best, even with the loss of momentum (coming to a stop at the end of the rotation), due to the more intuitive parkour-like feel (even though this isn't at all a parkour game); almost like sliding into a base in baseball, or doing a sliding tackle/kick.  Even though you don't have an avatar and as much body awareness as a game like Mirror's Edge (which is fine for this game), this seems more like the behavior of a physical body with weight and momentum, and more like the way your viewpoint would pivot as you go through the motion.

If designing for PS4, I'm guessing that you'll be taking varying movement speeds into account (using analog joysticks for movement), as well as keyboard controls (walk/run/crouch), so maybe to preserve momentum and pacing, you could use a sliding scale to vary the type of transition used based on movement speed and what the player is moving onto (a small ledge or block, or a large wall):

- when coming in at full speed to a small ledge or single block, slide foot-first into a full stop (like original movement method)

- when coming in at full speed to a large wall, use a large quarter pipe to emulate "kicking off" / wall-running to maintain momentum, although I'd still have the player coming in feet first to some degree so that the viewpoint is always looking ahead at what's coming next rather than filling much of the screen with blank wall

- when coming in at lower speeds, use lesser degrees of the foot-first slide (small ledges) or smaller quarter pipes (larger walls) to emulate the way a person at normal walking speed might slowly step across from floor to wall

Is there a possibility of stopping mid-transition?  That is, both floor and target wall are "active" / have gravity, and the player could theoretically walk/run along this corner?  Or will the player lose movement control for the duration of the transition (even though they can still look around), and should this inform making the transition as short as possible?

Just brainstorming... you're doing amazing work on this, keep it up!
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« Reply #438 on: November 17, 2014, 05:43:26 PM »

Oh nice! I played this at Bit-Bash. Thought it was incredibly clever! Look forward to seeing this game's release!
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William Chyr
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« Reply #439 on: November 18, 2014, 07:04:07 PM »

Congrats on getting this onto Playstation, that's awesome!

Thank you!

Maybe you could keep all momentum during the transition- i.e. you're moving forwards when you transition so you move forwards when you're transitioning and then it ends up being like the pipe (curved) wihout actually being curved?

I don't know, I've never played the game so its hard to say what would work?

I'm not 100% sure what you mean from the description. The challenge is that when I use the rotation function to turn the player, it's very difficult to maintain momentum in a way that feels natural. The pipe method feels good because the momentum is actually from the physics and player movement.

There might be some method where I can replicate the feel of momentum in the first method. Will keep experimenting and report back here.

I like the original movement method best, even with the loss of momentum (coming to a stop at the end of the rotation), due to the more intuitive parkour-like feel (even though this isn't at all a parkour game); almost like sliding into a base in baseball, or doing a sliding tackle/kick.  Even though you don't have an avatar and as much body awareness as a game like Mirror's Edge (which is fine for this game), this seems more like the behavior of a physical body with weight and momentum, and more like the way your viewpoint would pivot as you go through the motion.

If designing for PS4, I'm guessing that you'll be taking varying movement speeds into account (using analog joysticks for movement), as well as keyboard controls (walk/run/crouch), so maybe to preserve momentum and pacing, you could use a sliding scale to vary the type of transition used based on movement speed and what the player is moving onto (a small ledge or block, or a large wall):

- when coming in at full speed to a small ledge or single block, slide foot-first into a full stop (like original movement method)

- when coming in at full speed to a large wall, use a large quarter pipe to emulate "kicking off" / wall-running to maintain momentum, although I'd still have the player coming in feet first to some degree so that the viewpoint is always looking ahead at what's coming next rather than filling much of the screen with blank wall

- when coming in at lower speeds, use lesser degrees of the foot-first slide (small ledges) or smaller quarter pipes (larger walls) to emulate the way a person at normal walking speed might slowly step across from floor to wall

Is there a possibility of stopping mid-transition?  That is, both floor and target wall are "active" / have gravity, and the player could theoretically walk/run along this corner?  Or will the player lose movement control for the duration of the transition (even though they can still look around), and should this inform making the transition as short as possible?

Just brainstorming... you're doing amazing work on this, keep it up!

Looking at the gifs showing the view from the editor, I can see how it looks parkour-like. Unfortunately, it's not quite like a sliding motion, and that definitely doesn't come across when you're playing the game in first person. There isn't really a "foot-slide", despite how it appears.

And yes, you're right, with regards to the PS4, the joystick adds an additional layer to the game feel, in that there's now a spectrum of movement speeds, instead of being just "button is down" vs "button is up".

I'm thinking for both keyboard and PS4 controls, I would do something similar to the "Unfinished Swan", where if you are walking for a while, the speed will pick up, and you start to run. I think this would work much better than hold "shift" to run.

In any case, I think your suggestion of breaking down the approach by different cases (initial speed, height of ledge), and then having different walk methods, would work really well. I was hoping for a "one-solution-fits-all" approach, but I don't think that's possible. Each method has its pros and cons.

There's no possibility of stopping mid-transition. This causes several puzzle mechanics to break, and would encourage the game to be more execution-based, which is not really want I want.

Anyway, thanks so much for the suggestions. Really appreciate it!

Oh nice! I played this at Bit-Bash. Thought it was incredibly clever! Look forward to seeing this game's release!

Glad to hear that! Bit Bash was a ton of fun to be a part of.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2014, 07:15:27 PM by Willy Chyr » Logged

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