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[Yoann]

The game is now available, give it a try and don't hesitate to give us some feedbacks :

   

Hi everyone !

I’m happy to open this devlog about Spider Fall project. This project is above all a challenge we laid down to ourselves, me and a friend : it’s about (almost) finishing a game in 2 weeks (around 10 working days).

Of course, the game’s scope is quite small and we plan to have more a beta version thant a ready-to-release one, but we’ll do the best to have something the most polished we can.

**** Update ****

Actually (and it was predictable), the development took almost 11 months ! The 2 weeks challenges was quite ambitious and, as we both had to return to our respective full-time jobs, the progression was a little bit slowed down. Anyway, we finally did it and are happy and proud to present our game on Android and Apple stores !

The game

The game itself is a small mobile game, based on score and risk taking that we would want addictive.

To be more precise, you control a falling spider, making her (I don’t know if’s a girl, but in french it’s a feminine word, so it’s more natural to me ^^) avoid obstacle. Quite simple but some other rules make it quite different (at least, we hope) than other « avoid obstacles" mobile games :

• If you brush past obstacles, you increase a combo counter
• After x obstacles, you have to pass a « gate » where you score less or more relating to your combo count.
• Whenever you want, you can stop the game and get your score
• If you die touching an obstacle, you loose and score nothing.

So, all the game is about « do I want to continue to score more and really beat my friends taking the risk to loose all ? ». Classic risk taking mechanic

Update : No more "lose all if you die", it was too much punitive. Now only the "brush past obstacles" risk remains to make combos and increase your score.

The technology

The game is made with Unity free version and no specific plug-ins.
Update : The project uses now the DOTween plugin.

The team

• I, Yoann, am in charge of design and programming.
• My friend Julien is in charge of graphic design.

[Yoann]

*******  DAY 1 *******

We used that first day to lay the foundations of the games :

• Writing a reference game design document
• Define the artistic direction
• Define the UI flow

Some tests to build on iPhone/iPad too.

Here the spider and some of the research sketches :




*******  DAY 2  *******

Julien worked to develop the artistic direction with different game elements (obstacles, background) :



I started to think about the global code structure and implement first features :

• Controlling spider lateral move with touch slide
• Generating obstacles with a given width

***** DAY 3 *****

It was a day off for Julien, the Graphic Designer.

So, on my side, I just worked this afternoon :
 - Adapt my old prototype code
 - Implement the obstacles scrolling
 - Implement the difficulty steps manager (each x gates, the difficulty increases, which means scrolling speed, obstacles width and position)

[mila]

Your spider character is very cute! I'm excited to see where it goes!

[Yoann]

Thanks Mila, glad you like the spider character !

Here we go for the Day 4 log :

*****  DAY 4 *****

Code

- Implement gates
- Implement all scoring system
- Simplify difficulty parameters
- Add placeholder HUD



Graphics

- Gates design
- Screen borders for larger screen devices
- Title screen and menus first pass design

[catbuell]

this looks really neat, I love the art!

[Yoann]

Thanks catbuell for the art, I love what Julien did and I'm glad other people too.

*****  DAY 5 : UI, UI, UI and more UI  *****

Graphics

Julien developed the graphics on almost all the game UI an in-game HUD :



Code

I worked only on UI. Honestly, I didn't think it would be so long and I really underestimated the time it takes.
I used the new UI system in Unity and I had to pass time to understand it.

But above all, stating to code the UI implies to think about the entire game code structure and I took more than half the day to code the "invisible" things which manage all the game...

I had still a few remaining time to implement a first version of the start screen, options screen and "3, 2, 1, Go" transition to game :

[Yoann]

*****  BONUS WEEK-END DAYS + DAY 6 *****



Code

- 3,2,1,GO new animation
- Game over behavior + screen
- Game final score behavior + screen
- Implement spider "fall" animation
- Implement spider "explode" animation (when game over)

Graphics

- Spider "explode" animation
- Spider "fall" animation
- Combo feedback" when "brushing" obstacles

We also started a reflection on how to feedback the combo counter increment when "brushing" obstacle and how it acts as a multiplier on the earned score when passing through a gate... It's not easy as our game is quite frenetic and the information need to be not invasive and understood instantaneously.

[Yoann]

*****  DAY 7 TO 9  *****

I'm quite late to post this update about our projects but we worked hard to have the game the more finished possible before tomorrow evening, the end of our 2 weeks objective.

These 3 days, we worked mostly on what makes a pleasant game in my mind, signs and feedbacks !!
More precisely :

- "FX" sparks when brushing the obstacles
- Combo increase feedback when brushing the obstacles
- Combo loose feedback
- Score feedback when passing gates (with combo multiplier)
- Feedback when the game goes faster after x gates.

With some visuals :
 

Tomorrow it's officially our last day for our challenge and a lot of things stil to do : some polish graphics/animations, game center support, all sounds, tweaking and of course debugging...

[Yoann]

A long time since any update !! We're still working on the project but our initial delay of 2 week is largely timed out 
So we both return to our full time jobs and the progression is slowed down.

Anyway, the major upgrades are :

• Kill the "chose when to stop" feature : no the player stops the game when he lose, like the majority of endless runners. But there is still the risk taking mechanic brushing past the obstacles to make combos.
• Improvement of signs/feedbacks
• All UI implementation
• Google Plat and Game Center implementation
• New colours related to day time(day, sunrise or night) when passing a level of difficulty
• Google Ad mob implementation

Here a some pictures and an animated gif :





Now the last last straightaway is coming : adding sounds, optimize and polish signs and feedbacks, graphics and controls.

We start looking for beta-testers now too : don't hesitate to ask us if you want a download link when the beta version will be available.

[Yoann]

Hi everybody,

After almost 11 months (far from the initial 2 weeks challenges!), the game is finally available on Android and iOS devices.

Thanks to the TIG community messages !

Give it a try and give us some feedbacks :