Update 412A plane is not the best working environment for deep focus-stuff, but it works for some easier things, so I decided to move forward a bit with a few things we've discussed. The big thing is the "adrenaline" system, where the player can get a speed/jump/general agility boost. I started on an implementation of that, but it's not done and also we still don't really have a super solid idea for how it should be triggered, so I'm going to wait with that a bit. One thing we want to do is to make the adrenaline rush somehow connected to catching bats, so they feel actually useful and hunting them isn't a complete shore. However I'm not super keen on the idea of getting the rush immediately when catching the bats, because I want the rush fairly short and it's not at all certain that it will be contextually useful in the exact moment you happen to get a bat. One idea is that for each bat you catch (or for each 3 bats, or whatever) you gain a Rush, and then you can somehow activate that Rush at a later point, without losing the bats in terms of food. This idea seems to make sense, but I don't know what would be a good way to trigger it. Currently the game uses only two buttons, and I'm hesitant to add a third for this single purpose, there should be something more elegant. It could fire automatically when a predator gets close, but I can totally see how that could be frustrating. So yeah, some more design thinking needed.
But, I got some new moves in!
Belly slide:
This is basically a more daring alternative to the backflip for when a lizard is between you and where you want to go. The main difference is that where the backflip takes you over the head of a lizard chasing you from behind, this is useful for getting past a lizard you're running towards. The game needs more moves that aren't jumps, as basically all you've been able to do so far is jumping in different ways, and I hope this one can start to fill out that niche.
Then there are also a few new moves for the maze parts of the game. Originally Rain World was supposed to be 50/50 platforming and crawling in mazes, but we gravitated away from that as the platforming was simply more fun. Part of the reason for that was probably that in the mazes you had nothing else to do than move in 4 directions. The game will never go back to 50/50, but James wants to re-introduce a bit of maze crawling for one or two of the regions, and hopefully this new move set will make that more exciting. Testing in a room that's only narrow corridors with a bunch of lizards has yielded hopeful results - it's a fundamentally different game, with a lower tempo and more focused on sneaking and thinking ahead, but it can get pretty tense as well!
First up we have two vertical moves. Hitting up+jump will make the slugcat heave itself upwards quickly a few tiles, after which you face a bit of a slowdown penalty, which is supposed to make the average vertical speed somewhat break even. This is supposed to be useful in situations where you quickly want to get up and around a corner to get out of the field of vision of some creature. It is also useful when getting up to a ledge where you can switch to running or some other "non-crawling" means of locomotion, because when switching you can sort of bypass the penalty and get a little speed boost. The other move was suggested by ~~ I think it was Christian, and is something very natural I can't believe I didn't think of myself - the slugcat just stops pressing against the walls and drops down a chute. You trigger it by pressing down+jump, and the slugcat will continue falling for as long as you hold the down button. When adding NPC hearing (which should happen soon!) you should probably make an audible sound if you hit the bottom of the chute without grabbing on to the walls first, as a risk-reward balance for the speed gain you get.
Then we have a much requested feature - the ability to turn around in a narrow corridor. You do this by hitting the opposite direction button + jump, or up+jump if you're upside down in a vertical chute. I've intentionally made this move super awkward, as it is actually sort of too cramped for the slugcat to move around in there, and you shouldn't go butt-first into corridors to begin with
That being my main philosophy haha, I can still totally see how there are some situations where you're alone in a room with no lizards, and end up facing the wrong way in a corridor that goes on foreeeeeever, and it's just tedious. So here it is, at least it's possible now.
Last one is a horizontal "shuffle", triggered simply by pressing forward+jump. This one takes some skill though - if you just press jump at any place in a horizontal corridor, you get a pathetic little forward trust followed by a slowdown penalty that makes your net speed pretty much not break even. However, if you have solid terrain
behind you as you hit the button, you get a good forward momentum with just a small penalty at the end. Basically the slugcat needs a solid block to push against. This one is especially useful when coming around a corner into a horizontal corridor, like so:
Oh, and also, now I'm home, so I'll get to skinning the cicada! See you tomorrow!
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