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[freank]

very nice style !

[Grhyll]

Waw that's quite impressive! Reminds me a tiny bit of Give it up, Robot, but way more stylish and richer in terms of features! Curious to see where it's going.

[tjpalmer]

This game looks awesome.

[maxl]

@tjpalmer: Thanks a lot!

Waw that's quite impressive! Reminds me a tiny bit of Give it up, Robot, but way more stylish and richer in terms of features! Curious to see where it's going.

Didn't know it, had to play immediately!  

It plays quite differently, though. Probably the biggest difference is that you don't really aim with the hookshot and it just shoots out diagonally. And it's now as much about speed as my game... I think. But it's always cool to try out different interpretations of the same idea. Thanks for the inspiration!

[maxl]

I started working on the map select screen this week. Here's what I have so far:





I put this task off for so long for two reasons:

• UI, because I hate UI programming
• Quaternions, because I don't really understand them and they are black voodoo magic anyway. 

But it can't be helped. Pretty happy with how it progresses so far, but there's obviously still a LOT of polishing and other things to do before I can consider this done. Off to another week of UI and quaternions! 

[io3 creations]

When I first saw quaternions in Unity, I imagined the name coming from quarter + onion.  Dealing with quaternions the first time is like chopping onions into quarters => you WILL cry!

[maxl]

When I first saw quaternions in Unity, I imagined the name coming from quarter + onion.  Dealing with quaternions the first time is like chopping onions into quarters => you WILL cry!

I've been wanting to show the new map color skin I'm working on, but there's a spider that's blocking the view:



 

[maxl]

Implemented a new type of enemy that shoots out big balls in a star pattern. I first wanted to make this one of the beginning enemy types, but playtesting quickly revealed that this is already REALLY hard for beginners.   I myself have problems dealing with them.  

So I embraced their difficulty and created some hard-ass levels with them. Like this one:





I really need to start adding sound effects! :D

What you can also see in the video are what I call "Gate keepers". If you destroy them by dashing through them three times, the map borders move and reveal the next area of the level. This allows me to create much more interesting levels. Rather than just blasting through enemies, players are forced to engage with enemies more, maybe even have to backtrack through some parts of the level.  

[quantumpotato]

Looking great!
But the green flash on item pickup is very jarring.

[maxl]

Looking great!
But the green flash on item pickup is very jarring.

You think? Haven't heard that feedback yet, so thanks for bringing something new to my attention. I just wanted to make dashing more impactful and give the player a lot of feedback upon doing so. But if it feels jarring, that's the opposite of what I want.

[naezith]

Attack on Titan thing was pretty interesting, where is that big emotional guy?

[Tyrus Peace]

This is really progressing nicely! It looks to have a great feel to it, although I'd have to actually play it to be sure, or course.

I agree with quantumpotato that the green flash is very jarring. I'd like to add that the damage effect is quite distracting as well. Either limiting those effects to a smaller portion of the screen or making sure the character/terrain stay visible during them through some other means would help a lot, though!

[maxl]

Attack on Titan thing was pretty interesting, where is that big emotional guy?

Despite therapy, his sadness turned into anger.

You'll experience it first hand when you play the game  

I agree with quantumpotato that the green flash is very jarring. I'd like to add that the damage effect is quite distracting as well. Either limiting those effects to a smaller portion of the screen or making sure the character/terrain stay visible during them through some other means would help a lot, though!

Yeah, you're right! Re-watching the video, I also see it. It's not that bad when you play it yourself though. But still, I went overboard with effects and readability suffered. I need to find other ways to convey these events in an impactful but well readable way. Thanks for your input!  

[maxl]

Today, I've prototyped something I should have prototyped one year ago: auto-aiming for the hook target. It works SOOOO well! I can't believe I didn't do that earlier.

 I let my girlfriend try and even though she's a total beginner at the game, she was able to traverse and swing through the world surprisingly well. I think the auto-aiming moved the game towards being more beginner-friendly without sacrificing the potential to be rock-hard, given the right circumstances. But now even beginners can begin to feel what I want players to feel: speed, swiftness, agility, ...

I had a hard time coming up with proper first levels that introduce the player to targeting with the hook. Watching people play these levels always felt off, because they didn't quite grasp the controls right away. Made me feel a bit embarrassed as a designer THB. I really feel like this is a step into the right direction!  

Here's how it looks:

[wizered67]

Looks like it works well, and I agree that making the game more accessible to beginners is very important! I think making sure there's some room for the players to improve is good too though, so that there's some sense of progression as they get better and master the controls.

[io3 creations]

@maxl  That's an interesting idea.  I imagine it would also be useful for people with gamepads.

One thing that might be an issue is how will the auto lock work with solid objects.  Locking on to single points is fine but what about the bridge?   Seemed like there was a point at the end and you could also hook vertically up.  But what if in some part of the level, someone wants to keep swinging by e.g. hooking on to the middle of the bridge?  What about the giant and other similar large moving objects?

[maxl]

@maxl  That's an interesting idea.  I imagine it would also be useful for people with gamepads.

One thing that might be an issue is how will the auto lock work with solid objects.  Locking on to single points is fine but what about the bridge?   Seemed like there was a point at the end and you could also hook vertically up.  But what if in some part of the level, someone wants to keep swinging by e.g. hooking on to the middle of the bridge?  What about the giant and other similar large moving objects?

Maybe the video doesn't show it well: you can still hook wherever you want (as long as it's in range and in line of sight). The auto-aiming just kicks in when you are not currently aiming at something "hookable". Then the game looks for hookable spots in a certain arc around the current aim direction. This makes hooking the point spots in the video much easier and beginner friendly. Also, the player is always in control over when he/she wants to hook and let go, as well as change the rope's length.

Am I making sense?

[io3 creations]

Yes, that makes sense.  I was making my assumptions based on the video where it seemed like the hooking moves were limited.

[maxl]

New video time:





It shows one of the first wave-based maps, where you have to defeat enemies to advance to the next part. The map borders move to turn the level into multiple arena-based sections. The first enemies are these tentacles that shoot at you. They are - as most beginner enemies - stationary, so the player can choose how and when to engage them. Later enemies are not so reactive though  

I've also been working on the "map complete" screen in the past days, which you can see at the end of the video. It's WIP material, but it's kinda the direction I want to go into.

Also, the recent addition of auto-aiming for the hookshot has become - at least for me - second nature. I'm confident that this was a good choice. I also played the game with a gamepad as well and it... just WORKS! Before, using a gamepad it was definitely a lot harder to control the hooking mechanic than with mouse+keyboard. With the auto-aiming, it's much easier. Not on-par with mouse controls, but close enough that I can recommend playing it with a controller if players prefer it.    

[maxl]

This week, I started implementing so-called challenges which add replayability to the levels. All of them are optional but completionists will have a blast. There are two kinds of challenges. The first are basic ones like the following:

• Time attack: complete the level within X seconds
• Baby don't hurt me: don't take any damage
• Aquaphobia: don't fall into water
• Combo: achieve a certain combo meter rating

These are automatically completed whenever you beat the level while fulfilling the challenge.

Where it gets wild is with the advanced challenges. They allow me to warp the gameplay and give levels a new feel. They include:

• The floor is LAVA: touching the ground insta-kills you. Players need to keep swining/hooking/dashing at all times
• Glass cannon: High impact speeds when landing on the ground kill you.
• One-handed: you can't actively move right or left or change the rope length. You need to move forward solely by leveraging hooking/swinging momentum and dashing... and YES, this IS possible!    

Each of these needs to be activated before starting the level and only one can be active at a time.

Improved the map screen. While the UI is still highly WIP, it starts to be informative and usable:



There's soon gonna be a demo, then you can experience the game yourself!