next »

[William Chyr]

Dude, it's a really nice improvement! Keep going

Congrats on getting into the MEGABOOTH as well! I'll need to stop by at East if I can find some time and finally try it.

Thanks! Yeah, this is just the beginning of the face lift. From the reception so far, it looks like this is moving in the right direction. I still plan to keep working on it and iterating on the look for months, so it should only improve from there. There's still a lot of artifacts, like flickering dots, due to the edge-detection algorithm, that are more noticeable when in motion.

And yes, super stoked about being a part of the MEGABOOTH! There are some great games in the line up, and I'm super proud to be showcasing alongside of them. I'm planning on having the new look playable by then, so definitely do stop by and check it out! Are you there exhibiting your game as well?

The new art style looks wonderful. I liked the original look, but this really stands out

Thanks, Christian! I'm still a bit partial to the original look as well, as that had been all I stared at over a year. But the general consensus was that it looked far too generic. At IndieCade East, someone actually thought the game was Q.U.B.E. 2. I knew then that the visuals really needed work.

New style is looking great, really clear.

 

Thanks! I think it really addresses the clinical/sterility feel of the original style.

[William Chyr]

PAX EAST Indie MEGABOOTH



Just to make it official, Relativity will be on exhibit as part of the Indie MEGABOOTH at PAX East this year! I'll be in the Indie Minibooth area.

There are some sweet games in the line up this year, so definitely be sure to stop by!

[bsp]

Dude, it's a really nice improvement! Keep going

Congrats on getting into the MEGABOOTH as well! I'll need to stop by at East if I can find some time and finally try it.

Thanks! Yeah, this is just the beginning of the face lift. From the reception so far, it looks like this is moving in the right direction. I still plan to keep working on it and iterating on the look for months, so it should only improve from there. There's still a lot of artifacts, like flickering dots, due to the edge-detection algorithm, that are more noticeable when in motion.

And yes, super stoked about being a part of the MEGABOOTH! There are some great games in the line up, and I'm super proud to be showcasing alongside of them. I'm planning on having the new look playable by then, so definitely do stop by and check it out! Are you there exhibiting your game as well?

I'll also add in that I agree with Alex in that it would be beneficial to play around with a nice sky. If it's done right it could be pretty amazing, actually.

Yeah, we're just going to be showcasing in our own area not too far away from the MEGABOOTH.

[William Chyr]

I'll also add in that I agree with Alex in that it would be beneficial to play around with a nice sky. If it's done right it could be pretty amazing, actually.

Yeah, we're just going to be showcasing in our own area not too far away from the MEGABOOTH.

I definitely plan to work on a sky at some point. I just haven't figured out a style that would be consistent with everything in the game, and also adjust for the fact that your orientation keeps changing. Perhaps later this week I will start playing around with skyboxes.

Awesome, looking forward to checking your game at PAX East! See you then!

[William Chyr]

DevLog Update #43 - 04/02/2014

Continuing to work on the new art style of the game. In addition to the edges, I've added baked ambient occlusion (from before), lowered the ambient light, increased intensity of directional light, and changed the shadows from hard to soft.

[Connor]

this just gets more and more awesome every time i check this devlog.  great new art style! also, the lighting looks good, but if your going to use shadows, you should probably have a light source, wether its decorative or not, to make those shadows. thats my opinion anyways.
keep up the good work
also, i wish i could go to pax, but i dont have money and im only 15. sorry i cant be there :L
also also: will you be releasing a demo/build soon?

[William Chyr]

this just gets more and more awesome every time i check this devlog.  great new art style! also, the lighting looks good, but if your going to use shadows, you should probably have a light source, wether its decorative or not, to make those shadows. thats my opinion anyways.
keep up the good work
also, i wish i could go to pax, but i dont have money and im only 15. sorry i cant be there :L
also also: will you be releasing a demo/build soon?

Good call about the light source! You're totally correct in that right now they're just coming from some unidentified location. I'm planning on working on the sky in the next few days, so hopefully this issue will be addressed. One step at a time!

Regarding demo... I do plan on releasing one, but no dates yet. All I can promise is that it will be worth the wait. Patience, young one!

[Connor]

thanks gandalf

[bsp]

Is the yellow tint coming from your directional light or a post-process?

[William Chyr]

Is the yellow tint coming from your directional light or a post-process?

It's a post-process. It's actually applied by the same shader doing the edge-detection. I just have a color that gets applied to the entire background, with a slight fade. The directional light itself is white.

[bsp]

Is the yellow tint coming from your directional light or a post-process?

It's a post-process. It's actually applied by the same shader doing the edge-detection. I just have a color that gets applied to the entire background, with a slight fade. The directional light itself is white.

Ah. I was asking as something such as a day/night cycle might be pretty useful in helping to break up the visual staleness a distinct color tint can introduce. We faced the problem with our heavy blue tint but luckily found a way to pretty much fix it non-intentionally, but you may have a nice set up here in terms of color variation (e.g. blue/night to yellow/day loop as a basic example).

This is assuming with the narrative you have about the game that the world of Relativity would even exist within something vanilla enough to contain a lighting cycle/are not already planning other areas or worlds where hues may shift/doing something else with the skybox. Color-grading, although important quite often, can really easily cause visual fatigue without some variation.

I'm also a big sucker for being amidst starry (chunky squares) night skies while in open spaces. Exploring something like your game while in a serene environment like that just sends a lot of dope images to my brain, so yeah.

[William Chyr]

Is the yellow tint coming from your directional light or a post-process?

It's a post-process. It's actually applied by the same shader doing the edge-detection. I just have a color that gets applied to the entire background, with a slight fade. The directional light itself is white.

Ah. I was asking as something such as a day/night cycle might be pretty useful in helping to break up the visual staleness a distinct color tint can introduce. We faced the problem with our heavy blue tint but luckily found a way to pretty much fix it non-intentionally, but you may have a nice set up here in terms of color variation (e.g. blue/night to yellow/day loop as a basic example).

This is assuming with the narrative you have about the game that the world of Relativity would even exist within something vanilla enough to contain a lighting cycle/are not already planning other areas or worlds where hues may shift/doing something else with the skybox. Color-grading, although important quite often, can really easily cause visual fatigue without some variation.

I'm also a big sucker for being amidst starry (chunky squares) night skies while in open spaces. Exploring something like your game while in a serene environment like that just sends a lot of dope images to my brain, so yeah.

I loved the day/night cycle in Fez, and would love to do something similar in Relativity. My only concern is that because the color of the floor is the dominating color, and that can cycle between six different colors, whatever color I choose for the background/sky/overlay would need to work well with all six.

Even now, with just the yellow hue, that causes problems with the yellow cubes being not quite as visible.

I should definitely explore changing hues overtime.  You're spot on about visual fatigue due to color-grading. I'd also love to have weather effects, like snow or rain. Personally, I love rain in games. I was playing a lot of Sleeping Dogs a while back, and always wished there was just a mode where it rained all the time, and I could just drive aimlessly around the city. Also, gorgeous screenshots of sunsets like this from Journey makes me see how powerful those transitions between day and night can be.

I also do have an idea for a puzzle that involves time and a day/night cycle, so even from a gameplay point of view, there's a reason to implement something like that.

It can add a tremendous amount to the atmosphere and mood. Right now, I'm still not a point where I'm letting the narrative dictate choices, so if anything works well from a gameplay or visual standpoint, I would definitely put that in the game, and then work the narrative around that.

[bsp]

Rain/snow existing in a world with six gravity fields seems like an interesting challenge to implement!

[William Chyr]

Rain/snow existing in a world with six gravity fields seems like an interesting challenge to implement!

Yeah, can't decide whether rain/snow would always fall in one direction, or have it change according to which gravity field you're currently in.

The first option would be pretty cool, because then you can have rain falling upwards, sideways, etc. But the second option seems more consistent with the game's logic, that the gravity field you're on right now is the one that objects are reacting to, so therefore rain should fall in the direction of that gravity.

[William Chyr]

DevLog Update #44 - 04/05/2014

I had a few game developer friends playtest the game last Thursday. The response was quite positive. I implemented a lot of the feedback I got from GDC regarding puzzle pacing, and it's definitely much better now. By adding a few smaller puzzles that isolate specific concepts in between the larger puzzles, I was able to smooth out the learning curve, while at the same time not dumbing down those larger puzzles, which I really liked.

The new look is also working really well. Making lines vary with distance is still an issue, but it didn't affect gameplay too much.

One feedback I got was that players have a hard time remembering which direction a box falls towards. This is especially an issue in puzzles where you have to have boxes from three different gravity fields all working together to accomplish your task. In this situations, it's really important to know which direction a cube is going to fall, since sometimes you'll want to avoid rotating onto particular surfaces.

A lot of people have suggested adding arrows to the boxes to address this issue. I finally got around to doing it yesterday. It took way longer to implement due to some unexpected issues with generated meshes not being saved into a prefab object in Unity, but it's all done now.

Here are some screenshots of the new boxes in action. It's definitely an improvement, especially since even when I'm playing the game, I find the arrows to be quite helpful.








 

[mackie__m]

Wow, I can't imagine how it feel playing with different gravity fields. Is there a way to try it out?

[William Chyr]

Wow, I can't imagine how it feel playing with different gravity fields. Is there a way to try it out?

Unfortunately, there is no demo available online yet. I will be showing the game at PAX East next weekend with the Indie MEGABOOTH.

However, if you want to get a sense of the gameplay, I did a quick playthrough of some early levels with Kotaku back in February.  You can check that out here: http://kotaku.com/relativity-puts-you-in-an-mc-escher-drawing-1525127547

[mushbuh]

we gotta hang out more at pax and i gotta play this at pax

[William Chyr]

we gotta hang out more at pax and i gotta play this at pax

Yes to this. You and Magdev both going to be there?

[mushbuh]

yeah both of us will be there, looking forward 2 it