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[CullenCoyote]

Don't know how I'm just getting on board the hype train for this game now, but it looks amazing and the rolling makes me giggle nonstop.  Keep it up! 

[Krisjet]

Game looks awesome, looking forward to trying it out!

[Ishi]

Thanks both!

Ok, time for some new stuff. I have a new version of the fire powerup, a new beach background, and a new bomb object.



The bomb is pretty self-explanatory - it explodes! I'm not entirely sure how they will be dispensed yet. The cannons that I've previously shown off can shoot the bombs at you, but they're a bit hard to deal with when they're rolling around. I might instead go for an enemy that lobs / drops them, or a machine that spits them out regularly or one at a time.

Fire

Last time I talked about the fire powerup was way back here. I found that the powerup still had problems, mainly that it easily interrupted the normal flow of gameplay for me. Pressing the roll button in the air will normally make Leilani crouch, ready to roll once she hits the floor. When you did this with the fire powerup, you instead turned into a fireball which is cool but gets in the way.

The old version also wasn't actually that useful. You could use it to kill enemies and destroy blocks, but the main problem with this was that if you misjudged it then you could hit the floor in front of the enemy or blocks, which would end the fireball and you'd just roll into the enemy/block normally.

I want the fire powerup to complement the bubble powerup. The bubble is focused on defense and agility, so keeping the offensive / destructive uses of the fire powerup make sense.

In the new version, rolling while holding forward will heat Leilani up until she bursts into flame. Once she's on fire she can destroy blocks without rebounding and kill enemies that she would normally just bounce off. So she needs a bit of clear space to charge up the fireball, encouraging you to pay attention to the environment and plan ahead a little bit, but once she gets going she can destroy stuff very nicely. Spikes will still hurt her so be careful when rolling into enemies.

When Leilani stops rolling she takes a couple of seconds to cool down - during this time you can instantly use the fireball if you start rolling again so you can chain it throughout the level to potentially use it anywhere, even when you don't have space to do a run-up.

I'll need to get more levels together and do playtesting to see if this powerup feels good to use now, but I'm happy with the reasoning behind it at least.

The only thing I'm a little unsure about is that it has a slight bit of overlap with the invincibility powerup - both visually (yellow / hot glow) and functionally (burning through enemies and killing enemies with invincibility feels very similar). I'll keep an eye on whether this causes confusion.

[Artifice Machine]

Wonderful.

This fire powerup is much more interesting than invincibilty. If you have to change one, change the invincibility.

You should maybe add variance in debris size when blocks break from the fire roll.

Also, what item is picked up for the bubble power?

[ProgramGamer]

Can't wait to play this game

[Ishi]

This fire powerup is much more interesting than invincibilty. If you have to change one, change the invincibility.

Good plan

You should maybe add variance in debris size when blocks break from the fire roll.

Yeah the debris effect is pretty old and doesn't fit the game any more as the art style is a little less simplistic now.

Also, what item is picked up for the bubble power?

I was trying to figure this out last week but not sure yet....

[Artifice Machine]

Something that can be worn in hair that isn't a flower, feather, or shell...

Coral?

How about a pearl? It could roll instead of float.

[SolarLune]

Wow, nice. I feel like making the fire powerup speed her up while rolling would help to make it feel more like an obvious advantage, like you should always choose it over not having it (like Fire Mario).

Hmm, shell would make sense for a bubble power-up, since it's water-themed. Maybe a clam or a teardrop-shaped hair clip or something?

[GCshepard]

One thing I've felt for a bit is that the visual feedback for breaking blocks is a bit weak: they're there, and then they're gone with a few particles. Mario has the exact same effect, so with sound it's probably much better, but when you're in the fireball mode and blazing through the blocks it felt even more lacking to me. I think it's that in small mode, you bounce off after hitting the block, giving it some physicality, but in fireball mode you're breaking through tons of earth like it's butter.

Destroying the enemy in one hit in fireball mode looks weak as well. Also, you put emphasis on the utility of enemies, being able to make them do things for you (esp. the Carrybox and the charging shell enemy from a few posts ago), but the fireball ability pushes players to destroy enemies instead...

On a different note, the new beach background is a real improvement. Looking at the old background, it fits so much better.

Cheers!

[KaiTheSpy]

Screenshake can add some oomph to the block breaking if you want to go down that route. I don't mean Vlambeer levels, just a little bit

[Ishi]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone

Something that can be worn in hair that isn't a flower, feather, or shell...

Coral?

How about a pearl? It could roll instead of float.

I hadn't thought of coral, nice idea, though not sure how to simply represent it as a small chunky object. I did think of a pearl, currently bubble Leilani does have a blue pearl-like thing in her hair so that's an option.

Wow, nice. I feel like making the fire powerup speed her up while rolling would help to make it feel more like an obvious advantage, like you should always choose it over not having it (like Fire Mario).

Hmm, shell would make sense for a bubble power-up, since it's water-themed. Maybe a clam or a teardrop-shaped hair clip or something?

Currently invincibility speeds up Leilani so the fireball doesn't. It does feel like it would make sense so maybe invincibility will need a rethink.

I have shells as the normal collectibles so I'd like to avoid crossover and not have a different kind of shell as a powerup. A teardrop shape could work nicely in her hair to indicate water.

One thing I've felt for a bit is that the visual feedback for breaking blocks is a bit weak: they're there, and then they're gone with a few particles. Mario has the exact same effect, so with sound it's probably much better, but when you're in the fireball mode and blazing through the blocks it felt even more lacking to me. I think it's that in small mode, you bounce off after hitting the block, giving it some physicality, but in fireball mode you're breaking through tons of earth like it's butter.

Screenshake can add some oomph to the block breaking if you want to go down that route. I don't mean Vlambeer levels, just a little bit

I have a hit-pause (it freezes for 6 frames at 60fps) when breaking blocks with the fireball to try to give it a bit of impact without using screen shake, and to give the player more chance to follow the action as it's otherwise a bit overwhelming to charge through the blocks as if they're not there. I'm planning on adding that hit-pause when blasting through enemies too. As mentioned previously I need to revamp the block debris a bit, especially for the big block as it just uses the exact same effect as the small one. I might also try an additional impact/destruction effect that will play during the hit-pause (for an example see this gif, the game hit-pauses when Leilani is hurt but the red flash/star effect animates during the pause). Maybe using a small screenshake that animates during the pause would be worth trying too.

Destroying the enemy in one hit in fireball mode looks weak as well. Also, you put emphasis on the utility of enemies, being able to make them do things for you (esp. the Carrybox and the charging shell enemy from a few posts ago), but the fireball ability pushes players to destroy enemies instead...

This is a good point and something I did consider. I think deciding if the instant enemy death is too extreme will be something I watch out for in playtesting or just as I play the game myself once I get round to designing more levels. On one hand I like the idea of giving the player more choice about how they deal with enemies, on the other hand it does simplify the complex interactions with enemies a lot which goes against the normal flow of the game.

[PetterBergmar]

Those hit pauses look so nice.. I never noticed them before (which is a good thing) but the feeling is just right.

[mirrorfish]

This looks super charming and awesome, and I love the different interactions. 

[Raku]

ooh! Aside from the new feature you've shown, I think that background parallax beach is new to me? It looks so nice! Very good sense of depth! Love the clouds and ocean there too!

[Ishi]

ooh! Aside from the new feature you've shown, I think that background parallax beach is new to me? It looks so nice! Very good sense of depth! Love the clouds and ocean there too!

Yeah it's new, I got inspired to improve it after getting jealous of Beard Blade's lovely sea backdrop. Here's a comparison of the old and new backgrounds.



The sea and sky are the same colour now, and the clouds also share colours with the sky. The bushes and palm trees also share the same green as the blocks and Leilani's skirt. Over time I'm hoping to gradually consolidate some of the colours like this, as I think it'll help tie all the game's visuals together a little more.

[Tyron]

Fantastic Art Style and Love for detail, you've made something very special here

[BitBosh]

Can't wait to play this game

[Terrorbuns]

Lovin' the new stuff!!! Every update gets me all fired up to work on my own stuff!!

[jsmars]

Awesome work man! Very nice that you keep posting your devblogs, looks like this will be an amazing game! You say your inspired by Donkey Kong Country among others.. is it mainly the first game or others as well? My personal favorite is Donkey Kong Country 3, it has a cool overworld metagame and a lot of bonus content/systems, any chance your going to do anything of the sort?

[Ishi]

Awesome work man! Very nice that you keep posting your devblogs, looks like this will be an amazing game! You say your inspired by Donkey Kong Country among others.. is it mainly the first game or others as well? My personal favorite is Donkey Kong Country 3, it has a cool overworld metagame and a lot of bonus content/systems, any chance your going to do anything of the sort?

Thanks Regarding DKC, the main games I've played are actually Returns and Tropical Freeze. I also had some of the Game Boy ones when I was little. The gameplay of Leilani is more closely related to Wario / Mario games but I like a lot of the feel of how DKC games play, and also the atmosphere that is injected in a lot of levels. It's also a big inspiration for the music too!

I've just queued up DKC3 for download on my 3DS, so I'll play through that! I'm definitely interested in getting inspiration for the overworld, which is something I'm hoping to start working on for Leilani towards the end of this year or early next year, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it. Is there anything you particularly like about the DKC3 overworld?