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[s0]

feline mouth looks better imo

also fwiw the nazis were/are not big on satanism. a certain quasi-"pagan" type of belief is part of nazi ideology to some extent and nazi occultism is definitely a thing, but its not satanist. there are small satanist neo-nazi groups but theres no strong association. nothing about your game reads as nazi to me. it also looks hella rad (literally).

btw you have a syd barrett quote as your personal text and you like super mario 64. that's good.

[surt]

I much prefer the old mouth.

[Polygonzo]

Thanks guys, I'm leaning towards the feline mouth but still getting some more impressions from people.

And yeah about occultism, it's been used in all sorts of ways, to both creative and destructive ends. Like all potent forms of expression. I've put a lot of thought into it and I'm pretty familiar with the history both good and bad. Happy Hell's take on the occult is a humanist one, hopefully positive, celebrating boogeymen of all cultures and finding a little fun and fantasy in irreverence. Maybe I'll go into all of this in more detail another time. Though I do prefer a certain degree of ambiguity about this stuff, I must be clear about certain things because I think I'm doing something a little different. Any supremacist or otherwise hateful associations with the occult have no place in Happy Hell. In the end, this game won't be for everyone, but it would like to be.

ANYWAY.

btw you have a syd barrett quote as your personal text and you like super mario 64. that's good.

I'm glad you appreciate my tastes Not sure if you're into Sun Ra but the little tune from the last video is from a live performance of 'Enlightenment'. Hopefully I'll have some cool original music to share in the next month or so. My music collaborator is taking his sweet time "finding the sound".

[surt]

If are going that way I'd at least recommend making the mouth narrower to better fit it. The cleft lip on the wide mouth looks more like a harelip than a cat's mouth.

[Polygonzo]

Hmmm. Good point. I'll keep messing with it.

Edit: I've also noticed that the cleft almost looks like a pair of ghoulies to go along with his already phallic nose...........

[marcgfx]

not a fan of the feline mouth, unless he also got a cat nose, making him a cat. I personally don't like his nose, but its a pretty strong feature that can be remembered. I just always think of a balloon, because it bulges out and down so strongly.

[Zorg]

not a fan of the feline mouth, unless he also got a cat nose...

Same here, feline mouth does not work with that nose, imho.

[Polygonzo]

Here's my drawing for the postcards I'll be sending out to some Kickstarter backers. The "cat cleft" is not as bulgy or pronounced. I think it looks better but still playing with it.



And for a truly creepy cat with a big red nose:

This Looney Tunes cartoon wasn't on my mind at all when I designed Spooky Poo but I definitely saw it as a kid so it must have seeped into my subconscious.

[s0]

Thanks guys, I'm leaning towards the feline mouth but still getting some more impressions from people.

And yeah about occultism, it's been used in all sorts of ways, to both creative and destructive ends. Like all potent forms of expression. I've put a lot of thought into it and I'm pretty familiar with the history both good and bad. Happy Hell's take on the occult is a humanist one, hopefully positive, celebrating boogeymen of all cultures and finding a little fun and fantasy in irreverence. Maybe I'll go into all of this in more detail another time. Though I do prefer a certain degree of ambiguity about this stuff, I must be clear about certain things because I think I'm doing something a little different. Any supremacist or otherwise hateful associations with the occult have no place in Happy Hell. In the end, this game won't be for everyone, but it would like to be.

ANYWAY.

btw you have a syd barrett quote as your personal text and you like super mario 64. that's good.

I'm glad you appreciate my tastes Not sure if you're into Sun Ra but the little tune from the last video is from a live performance of 'Enlightenment'. Hopefully I'll have some cool original music to share in the next month or so. My music collaborator is taking his sweet time "finding the sound".

hey, it's cool that you're thinking about the messages you're sending with your work! also cool that youre so open to criticism/questions in this regard

and yes im a big ra fan.

[Quicksand-T]

I prefer the older look.

Here are some examples of the racist imagery brought up earlier:

http://i.imgur.com/8qj0Zds.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/By4mKIV.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/c5nbgYJ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/bz9Bibs.png

The older version of Poo doesn't really resemble that at all to me, but if someone disagress maybe they could explain why? The main common features of those racial caricatures are pure black skin, coiled hair blending with the skin color, and bright red pouty lips. Spooky Poo only has the first one, but that evokes Felix or Fleischer's Bimbo character as much as it does Bosco or a Noddy. If he had big red lips that would change everything, but he doesn't.

[gimymblert]

I didn't say it's the racist imagery verbatim, I said some people might associate the visual because they are similar, enough for evoking to some and narrow the reach of the game. It's a difficult proposition, it's not clear cut. I point this while saying I'm fine leaving that to his judgement.

[Polygonzo]

Well I appreciate that it was brought up, that Gimym JIMBERT expressed that perspective. I won't argue how much Spooky Poo is or isn't similar to all of those wrong and just messed up characters. If that's what some people feel, I must see how I can address the issue because that kind of negative imagery is at odds with what the game's about. If conservative religious types are turned off, that's one thing, but I don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable or unwelcome based on their race or gender or anything like that.

I think this freaky black cat creature design can work. I want to be inclusive of open-minded peoples of all kinds...so this is a good conversation to have now while Happy Hell is starting to solidify. I don't think it'll be an issue that mires the project. At least I hope not!

[gimymblert]

Also I raised that in the context of commenting on the kickstarter performance, I didn't brought it up against the author, he decide himself to act on it.

[Quicksand-T]

I didn't say it's the racist imagery verbatim, I said some people might associate the visual because they are similar, enough for evoking to some and narrow the reach of the game. It's a difficult proposition, it's not clear cut. I point this while saying I'm fine leaving that to his judgement.

I didn't mean to put words in your mouth, sorry if it came across like that.

[Polygonzo]

So Happy Hell was finally Greenlit last week! That's one less webpage I have to compulsively refresh throughout the day :p

The last month I've laid pretty low and kept my head down working on swimming mechanics. Underwater movement was a bigger undertaking than I initially expected! Because I still wanted Spooky to be able to carry objects, shoot, spin attack and broom vroom underwater, this feature had far reaching implications but it was worth it. Here's a video showing off what I came up with:

It's still got some kinks but I think it feels pretty intuitive. Use the control stick (WASD) to move around in the water, Tap 'X' to breast stroke forward and Hold 'X' down to dive. There are some additional nuances to how Spooky moves, hopefully I'll have a playable thing up in the next month or so to get some feedback (there are a couple of pesky bugs I need to squash).

Right now (after wrapping up some loose ends with swimming) I'll be shifting focus towards level progression-based systems: item collection, dialogue/quests, Heck points, saving...

No rest for the wicked!

P.S. The music in the video is by a local friend, Curran. He'll be making a lot of the music for Happy Hell, but this track was just an experiment, nothing final.

[gimymblert]

I think the best swimming control in platformer has been banjo's.
In fact there is clearly two mode, surface and underwater with the camera clearly either in one or the other above water line or below water line and an animation that feedback clearly "emerging" in the surface without removing control, same with submerging. Given than jumping out of water can be a chore in other game it helped tremendously. Also because surface movement was like walking it promoted visibility and remove confusion about when you want to move around and not submerge.

[Polygonzo]

Yeah Banjo's swimming is pretty good, especially the transition between surface/underwater states and how easy it is to jump out of water like you said. (one thing that did drive me mad at times was overshooting my destination with those big floaty wings flaps, but that can be curbed with the slower kick swim move so...) My surface state is pretty similar to Banjo, but where it's a bit different is underwater when one still uses the control stick to move forward in X and Y space (while slowly sinking down(sink faster if there's no control stick input)).

Holding the X Button while tilting the control stick makes Spooky dive at an angle. Holding X with no stick input means he dives straight down and faster. The strokes (by just tapping X) are similar in how the control stick changes the angle of Spooky's upward trajectory (stroke with no control stick input and he swims to the surface faster).

Now, once the broom is added to the mix, you can really fly around! I'm pretty happy with how freeing it feels especially compared to other 3D platformers. I'll try to get an updated build out when I can so more people can tell me what they think.

[gimymblert]

Can't wait to see it in action, I guess the broom is like the turtle shell in mario galaxy!

Although I have a soft spot for an innovation in soul reaver, the back swim to take some speed is genius and gave a great feeling, also the zora's swimming in majora 64 (not the remake) was glorious (if your character have a power up to enable this I'm gold /fanboy)

[Polygonzo]

I shall keep that in mind because yeah, that Zora swimming was cool. In DK64 I seem to remember some fun-ish leaping out of the water with Enguarde the swordfish...I don't remember if it actually controlled well, but I do dig that sense of leaping in and out of the water all fish-like.

EDIT: Re: DK64, this pretty much sums up that game's design for me, just jumping through loads stupid of hoops:

 

[Polygonzo]

So I'm diving into dialogue stuff (linear and branching) as I learn how to best integrate Pixel Crusher's Dialogue System for Unity. It's a pretty powerful tool that will allow me to script NPC interactions, quest progress, player save data, cutscene behaviour...and it's been fairly easy to use!

What I have working so far is rough, but here's a little video (also featuring Spooky's innate ability to hang from things by his nose)