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[Thomas Finch]

Devlog Update #68 - 08/26/14

So, the past month I've been banned from tigs thanks to a site error. I had to use a proxy to access the forums up until now when I finally contacted a mod. Now its much easier for me to update.

So, things I neglected to mention last update:


Design Changes
I've changed a few things for the game's overall design. There will now be many, many more mementos per world. However, the majority of them will simply involve reaching them and touching to obtain. Those ones will be generic mementos with no name and a standard sprite. 3-4 mementos per world will remain more important to the player. For those 3-4 mementos, there will be a hard to reach door. Through the door will be a room containing one big (more traditional-style) puzzle for the player to solve. Each puzzle is based on the item itself and they'll all be fairly unique.

Also, I have made slopes/bumpy ground barely used in the game and improved game performance in the process. The reason is that slopes actually inhibited gameplay and to be honest simply made the game look worse. The ground will not appear flat, however, as there will be foliage, rocks and other environment art that make the ground look less dull.


Development
We're working hard as usual. I'm 1/3rd done designing and programming the first world Brookstone Cemetery, which is right on schedule. The artist has finished two layers to the world's parallax background along with a lot of the game's general art and some enemy animations. The hell void portal still needs an animation of it snapping shut with the player inside.


Kickstarter
I've been talking with a few other developers and decided that we need to do a kickstarter as soon as possible. However, I refuse to do one until I'm confident that we have enough to show. So, I've designed a teaser trailer and picked out some specific concept art I think would stand out. We're going to prioritize art used in the teaser trailer and that concept art. The only remaining art for the trailer will be in Brookstone Cemetery anyway though. So, by the time we run the kickstarter we will be about done with Brookstone Cemetery. I plan to make the trailer 1min 30sec long about and the composer plans to compose a song specifically for it. I think music can really hold a trailer together and get people hyped about a game. Currently, I'm thinking that we'll run the kickstarter around the second week of October, but I won't make any promises about when it will start. We'll just have to see how things go this time!

[Thomas Finch]

Devlog Update #69 - 09/03/14

Xbox One
I just found out that Game Maker is adding an export module for Xbox One! This means I should be able to get Ethereal on Xbox One as well now! :D So to refresh, the game should now be available on PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, Wii U, PS3, PS4, and VITA.

Development Progress
We're actually running ahead of the schedule for development, which was unexpected! The artist is almost done with the background layers for the cemetery which are by far the brunt of the work for each world. I've implemented the animations for Worry. I've also added a lighting system and all spirits now have an ethereal float to them. It makes them appear more ghostly. I've made too many changes to list in the last two weeks, but my favorite is the movement smoothing. First, I smoothed the player movement so it didn't feel abrupt, then I tightened it up a bit so the controls feel better. The end result feels much, much better. Here is a quick preview of the lighting that I shared on twitter!



Optimization
This probably shouldn't have been high on the priority list, but it was bugging me. So I spent all today completely restructuring all game code, getting rid of old unnecessary bits and optimizing everything. I also removed many assets that were no longer necessary. The game runs a good bit better now. It'll help ensure that when I record gameplay for the trailer, it runs at 60FPS.

Clouds
Somewhere along the way, I decided against using the clouds anywhere except Purgatory. The only reason they were needed for Purgatory was because you're amongst the clouds. In other worlds, we can use a simple scrolling background as they are more distant. As such, we've decided to scrap the randomized clouds in favor of hand-crafted ones. They'll look about the same but have a better overall design to them.

New Website
I was having trouble consistently updating the old website so I decided that I would cease updating it like I do the devlog. I didn't feel there were enough viewers and a simple link to this devlog would probably be more useful. In the end, I scrapped the entire website and created an entirely new site based around Ethereal specifically!
Check it out and let me know what you think: www.etherealgame.net

[Thomas Finch]

Mini-Update: 9/4/14

I'm going to start doing mini-updates almost daily! I'll keep doing bigger updates at about the usual pace though.
So, today I finished designing the first room of Brookstone Cemetery! It's not complete, because its missing foliage, 1 background layer and other environment art. In terms of puzzle/level design though that room is complete. I'm about 50% done with the second room now as well. The artist finished the third layer for the Cemetery background. 1 Layer left! I also realized today that when I changed domains I forgot to fix my email forwarding, so any emails sent to [email protected] yesterday didn't make it. If you tried to send me an email, try again! [email protected]

[Thomas Finch]

Devlog Update #70 - 09/05/14

Work in Progress Cemetery Background (Click for full resolution)


Final Layer of Cemetery Background (Work in Progress)


Worry (Bounce Animation)


Worry (Idle Animation)

[Thomas Finch]

Mini-Update: 9/8/14

Woops! Missed yesterday.

Yesterday and today has involved an immense amount of kickstarter work. I've been talking to other developers and asking for opinions about my preview page. The page has improved a lot and I think it's looking really great.

I also worked on the game itself a lot. Turns out platforms were broken due to a change in how their art worked. Fixed a lot of issues with them and now they work better than before! Nearly finished designing the second room of the cemetery. Just have to tweak a few things and I can get started on room 3. Once the artist is back, I'll design the clock puzzle room and give you guys a look!

Things are looking really good and I'm excited. A major thing I need to work on is my press pitch. It's extremely important that a lot of press are talking about the kickstarter on day one to get the ball rolling. So, I'll need to work on that.

[Thomas Finch]

Mini-Update: 9/9/14

Been continuing work on the kickstarter and getting a ton of feedback from other developers. The rewards system has improved by a ton as well as the page itself. Made awesome banners for the top of each section. Each one has a different player or npc animation playing at the left side. I figured it was a good way to show off the sprite animations without cluttering up the page. This way I can save the page for mostly full size gifs and images.

I also uploaded three songs from the soundtrack to Soundcloud! Check it out: https://soundcloud.com/ethereal/sets/ethereal-ost-preview

[Thomas Finch]

Mini-Update: 9/10/14

Still been working on kickstarter a lot and a little on the game itself. I feel like being a game developer is barely about game development at this point.

Here's a work in progress preview:


That's the player in Brookstone Cemetery bouncing off a Worry spirit, then trying to use an ability which causes Pain the hellhound to grab him and throw him into a hell void.

[Thomas Finch]

Devlog Update #71 - 09/12/14

Cemetery Parallax Background (click for full resolution)


The artist just got back and got straight back to work!
The final layer of the cemetery background is made of randomly-ordered big vertical slices. Each slice can be placed -50,0,50 in relation to the one before it. This means I can have the closest layer move faster and simply place more of these tiles. The artist has finished 7/10 of those vertical slices so far.


Hover Text now has an parallax effect!
(sorry for the awful compression)


I was doing some testing and realized that at lower resolutions floating text was broken. It would move around. So, I made it a feature! It looked really cool, because it made the text seem like it was on a layer closer to the screen than the player. So, I fixed the bug, then used a different method to make it work properly! I'm really happy with the results.

In other news, I revamped the website once again. Then I revamped the first and second post of this devlog and the indieDB page. Check em out!

[Thomas Finch]

I got some really great news yesterday, so today I took a long-deserved break.

If anyone has any questions, criticisms, praise or anything to say at all, please comment! Getting lonely in here!

[alvarop]

Great progress, the game has changed a lot since I last saw it. 

[Thomas Finch]

Thanks, guys!

Devlog Update #72 - 09/15/14

Made a tiny design change today! Originally, the player's ability Possession allowed him to take control of humans. However, the things accomplished that way were too similar to what the ability Haunt is used for. So, now he will no longer be able to possess humans... he'll be able to possess animals! I think this'll create from some interesting puzzles. Maybe bunny/squirrel for getting through tight spaces, bird to fly. Possession will be time-limited so people won't be able to abuse it, of course.

Artist finished a lot of stuff the past few days, but I'll save some for another day. Today, I'll show you his concept art for the giant pocket clock puzzle!



This is the first 'memento puzzle'. There are about 10 mementos per world. 7 of them are generic objects that contribute towards completion. However, 3 per world are more special to the player. They are things that really help him get through the traumatic memory. So they are hidden in their own rooms with larger more traditional puzzles. This clock needs to be set at a specific time using the switches around it. Once it's correclty set, the bottom will explode open, revealing the "Dad's Pocket watch" memento.

[Thomas Finch]

Mini-Update: 9/17/14

Yesterday I worked more on the kickstarter rewards system. Then I made small changes to the game itself. Now, if ground tiles change due to switches being turned on or off, the ground tiles around them change their appearance accordingly. It makes the game feel more polished. I also made a lot of adjustments to the cemetery's second room design. Lastly, I decided to do some long-planned gamepad tweaking. I switched a few of the controls around and mapped some new features (like the suicide button) to buttons on the gamepad.

Today, I implemented the new switch design the artist made!



There are two types of switches currently.
Toggle: These have two states, on and off. If the switch is off, it appears floating in the air still. When turned on, it comes together and tightens.
Rotation: These are always in one piece. When the player interacts with it, the switch turns but does not disassemble/reassemble.

I also designed the clock memento puzzle! Elaborating on my previous post about this: There are four rotation switches surrounding a giant clock. Entering the room randomizes the time on the clock. Each of the rotation switches adjusts the hour and the minute by a specific (separate) amount. For example, Switch #1 may reduce the hour by 3 but increase the minutes by 20. Each switch is different, so the player must strategize which order he presses the switches in order to get the correct time. Once the time is correct on the clock, it will burst open revealing the memento inside!

So what I did today was design the intricacies of this puzzle, ie how many hours and minutes are changed by each switch. Tomorrow the artist will finish the clock art and I will implement it into the game fully.

[Thomas Finch]

Devlog Update #73 - 09/19/14

Kickstarter News!
I've officially announced on twitter that the kickstarter will be launching on October 14th! I'm excited and horrified all at once. I'm working extra hard to make sure its a success. I'd like to make sure you all know that I won't abandon this devlog! All of your support, feedback and encouragement has been very helpful and appreciated. I will continue to post here hopefully just as regularly. I've already been working on the game full time for months, so I know I can easily do that. I don't plan to have backer-exclusive updates unless it concerns the beta test.

Giant Clock Puzzle!
(Concept Art Top, Game Art Bottom)


When the puzzle is complete, it cracks open as seen on the right, revealing the memento. You can see the WIP door opening below.




Restraint, the Hellhound
As stated previously, he is like a boo from Super Mario. Looks away when you look at it.


Better GIF of Switch for Puzzles

[Thomas Finch]

Mini-Update: 9/22/14

The last few days have been all about the optimization! My nephew played the demo and his computer is not very good, so the game ran terribly. I feel like there are other reasons it isn't running well on his computer and I'll have to figure those out at some point. However, I decided it was about time I optimize dramatically.

Before: The average FPS in Brookstone Cemetery was 220ish.
Pain, the hellhound, brought performance down because his line-of-sight code was very clunky. So, I optimized his code by making it's incremental check use bigger gaps. I also, made his code run slightly less often. I made sure his eye still smoothly follows the player. Worry, the spirit, had some movement code that accounted for slopes, slowing down the game when they were on screen and when one of them was meant to stay still, the movement code was still calculated. So, I fixed those issues, improving performance. I drastically optimized the code used in ground tiles. The game no longer draws pixels whose alpha is at 0, reducing draw time for big objects that have a lot of alpha space (like parallax backgrounds). I also implemented a system that deactivates specific intensive objects when they are off-screen and constantly activates everything on screen. I made sure that even at the highest speed possible, nothing loads in late.
After: The average FPS in Brookstone Cemetery is now 550! A huge improvement!

To finish off this mini-update, I have the final version of the clock door opening:

[karlozalb]

man, the art is better and better everytime I enter in this post

[Thomas Finch]

man, the art is better and better everytime I enter in this post

Thanks, Karl! We try.

Mini-Update: 9/24/14

Yesterday I implemented all the art for the clock puzzle, which took more work than expected. The clock hands needed to move clockwise. They started facing rightward, but a clock starts at the top. Add all that to the fact that I didn't know draw_sprite_ext rotates the sprite the sprite based by a certain amount, not to a specific degree. So, it took me hours just to get that done. Now it works great though!

I also fixed some bugs and finally figured out Game Maker's changes to resolution/window size. Now hover text appears in the correct position no matter what resolution you are, and the graphics quality changes based on your resolution. Today I'll be cleaning up level design a little, fixing more bugs, more optimization, etc. I also have to take everything off draw_gui because I much prefer plain old draw. Much easier to work with.

[Thomas Finch]

Mini-Update: 9/25/14

Hey guys, not a ton to talk about today. I've been doing a ton of optimizing still. The artist is nearly done with the art for Wrath the hellhound. People seemed to really love his concept art so hopefully his sprite is just as well received! Meanwhile, I realized that previously I posted a soundcloud preview and the link was broken. I fixed it now, so here's that again:

[Beaulamb1992]

Looking awesome! that clock! 

[Thomas Finch]

Thanks Beau!

Mini-Update: 9/26/14

I don't have much for this screenshot saturday unfortunately.
What I do have is Wrath's animation!



Also, our first REAL screenshot! It's incomplete still.



Things still missing:
1. Environment art. There will be things around the level that make it more interesting, as seen in concept art shown previously. There will also be some of this art underground so that area isn't just a big brown spot.
2. Floating ground will look broken up and messy on the bottom as if its been ripped from the ground.

[Thomas Finch]

The artist just sent me the pocket watch memento sprite and holy shit!
I'm so impressed with it! It seriously looks 3D to me.