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[Mark Mayers]

Update 20: 03/01/2015

Today I have an environmental preview of the different areas I've been working on.
These pictures are the 'entrances' to each environment.

There are six planned in total, but today I'm showing four of what I have so far.

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This is probably the most iconic area of Desolus so far; The Field.
This image is also the title screen.



I'm likely to make this the 'hub area' of the game, where you can warp to the various pyramids of the Desolus.
I also might hide some meta-puzzles here for the player to figure out.

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This is the first area of the game, and so far the most complete.
It's called The Void Canyon for the time being, but I'll probably think of a more creative name later.



This takes place in the center and largest pyramid of the Desolus.
The terrain is categorized by vast chasms and open valleys filled with pools of reflective and deadly water.
Levels are a mixture between horizontal and vertical design, with certain areas crossing over previous areas.

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This is a Glacier themed zone which I don't have a name for yet.



This is the lower left pyramid of the Desolus.
I haven't worked much with this level yet, but I plan to have most of the design based around the Speed Booster ability. 
I'm still prototyping the mechanic, but essentially it makes you run ridiculously fast.
Think of how Super Metroid does it, but from a first person perspective.

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This is a Mountain themed area which I think is my favorite so far out of the worlds I've made.



This takes place in the lower right pyramid of the Desolus.
Design is mostly vertical, and makes use of the planned Gravity Jump mechanic that I've prototyped but haven't shown yet.
Puzzles would be classic platforming style, but with a unique twist which I'll go into later.

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In terms of order/progression of levels, I'll likely make progression non-linear.
You can visit each pyramid in any order you wish, except you must complete the first area as an introduction.

I am a fan of non-linear design, and that's what I am trying to do with Desolus.

There are two more areas which I won't show today. I'll save those for a later date.
I think my next step in making this game is to flesh out the design of the Mountain/Glacier worlds, and then revise the puzzles of the Canyon area.
After that, I'll move on to completing the next two worlds.

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That's all for today!

[DarkWanderer]

This world looks really immersive & mystical. Love the aesthetic.

[jamesprimate]

ahh this is gorgeous! and you are based out of boston too, how am i just stumbling on this now?

are you doing any showings around PAX East? we should talk def talk

[Potato]

The particle effects looks amazing.

[Mark Mayers]

This world looks really immersive & mystical. Love the aesthetic.

There's no UI in the game (at least not in the traditional sense) so I'm going for full immersion.
I'm excited to get my hands on an Oculus or some other VR for the future. I think Desolus would be perfect for it.
Thanks!

ahh this is gorgeous! and you are based out of boston too, how am i just stumbling on this now?

are you doing any showings around PAX East? we should talk def talk

I showed Desolus last week the Playcrafting Boston Winter Expo! Unfortunate you were a bit late on that one.
The Playcrafting Expo was very beneficial towards development, so I definitely would like to do something similar soon.
I'm not aware of any local indie expos in the near future, however.

I want bring the game to PAX East eventually, but next year is better since the game will be more developed.
I will be at PAX East next weekend as an attendee, however. I've been every year.
I'll be around the MEGABOOTH for probably 85% of the show checking out all the awesome games people made; it's my favorite part.

Send me an email though, or hit me up on Twitter!

The particle effects looks amazing.

Saying how almost every asset in the game is a particle effect, I'll take that as a big compliment, heh.

[Mark Mayers]

Update 21: 03/07/2015

I've been creating levels based around two interesting movement mechanics in the last week.
What's interesting is I originally had these as developer cheats.... but I found the abilities fun enough that I decided to turn them into actual game mechanics.

However, I needed to place some restrictions on how the player could use these abilities, to give them puzzle aspects.
As a design decision, abilities are activated via particle nodes.
The player must shoot the black hole into these nodes to activate abilities.

The second 'Act' of the game takes place between a dichotomy of areas, the Ice and Fire Pyramids.
They're opposites in both theme and mechanics.
The player can complete these in either order; I'm designing the game to be very non-linear.

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The Ice Pyramid takes place in a frigid environment that is a massive glacier, with emphasis on horizontal design.
Here you gain the ability of the Speed Booster.

It's used as both a method of transportation, and as a puzzle mechanic.
It allows the player to run about ~8 times faster than normal, and is activated via a particle node.

Here's a gif showing the concept, in a prototype level:



The effect is only temporary, as when the singularity explodes, the effect is nullified.
However, you can chain the speed effects together; which is the emphasis of the puzzles in this area.

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The Fire Pyramid is a set of mountains existing as islands.
Players must use the Jump Booster ability to navigate between mountains.
This ability is also limited, and must be activated via nodes.

Here's a gif of a prototype level:



The jump booster gives the player what is essentially limited flight/hovering ability.
Most of these puzzles are based around thinking/perception, in contrast with the skill/reaction time emphasis of the speed boost puzzles.

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Only half of the Fire/Ice pyramid's levels can be completed at first.
After the player completes these two areas independently, previous areas will be populated with the opposite corresponding particle nodes.

The player can then navigate back to the two pyramids and complete the other half of the environments to unlock additional secrets and abilities.
In addition, the first pyramid is also open for additional exploration.

The Jump and Speed boost can be combined into something similar to how Shine Sparks work in Super Metroid.
I'm still prototyping this mechanic, but I've had interesting developments that I'll go into later.

What I thought was interesting is that apparently in Metroid Prime the Speed Boost/Shine Spark concept was scrapped because of technical and design limitations.
About ~15 years later.... there are no technical limitations, and as an indie, I have complete design freedom.

Although the difficulty factor isn't eliminated.... heh.

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I went to PAX East today and had a ton of fun.

Playing Rain World and Ghost Song were definitely two of my highlights.
I'm also really looking forward to Axiom Verge, and YIIK looked super cool as well.

One of the Talos Principle developers gave me very good puzzle design advice, so I was excited about that too.

I also met Rami Ismail; if you're lurking and reading this, rock on.

[Mark Mayers]

Update 22: 03/09/2015

Killing your darlings... I think that's one of the hardest things about game development, as I've discovered.

Today I was thinking about re-implementing a feature called the Destabilizer.
Basically what this is, is a weapon that shoots projectiles that 'destabilize' objects, breaking them into particles that can be absorbed by the black hole.

The gameplay would consist of players shooting world objects with the Destabilizer, and then using the singularity to absorb these objects for various effects. Right click would become the singularity, and the two mechanics would interact with each other.

Here's a video of the mechanic from a year ago, when I was only experimenting with concepts:



One of my friends played the prototype (further along than that gif) and he asked questions like:
-Why can't I just shoot/damage the enemies directly and kill them?
-What's even the point of the black hole in the game? Just to look cool?

The game didn't really have any direction.

The essential player actions/core loop was a multiple step process:
Aim at interactable object -> shoot with destabilizer -> shoot singularity -> absorb destabilized object -> effect.
How would I even convey that to players? What would this even do?

The reason I originally removed this from the game, is because it over complicates things dramatically; from a gameplay, design, and implementation perspective.

What are the consequences re-implementing this? It would probably set me back six months to a year.
All of the content so far that I've made would essentially be irrelevant, as it changes the core mechanic completely.

It's not worth the redesign, but maybe my mind will change.
Maybe in the next game? But let's finish this one first

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I asked a few of my playtesters about their opinions regarding this.

-"You told me not long ago that you wanted to make the game a little more accessible. This would be the exact opposite."

-"I think it's interesting but your puzzles are already difficult so you want to keep the mechanics simple so the focus is on the puzzles ... If you do implement this it would need to be in an intuitive way."

-"I'm not entirely sure, but my preference is that you like it. Art should be made for you and you alone. If others like it, cool."

-"What you have so far is dope as f**k. I don't want to wait an extra year."

At least that gave me a bit of reassurance in keeping it cut from the game. It might survive in some form, we'll see.

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After going back and thinking about redesigning the mechanic; I decided just to revert my changes and go back to yesterday's build.
Today was a bit of a setback, but I don't think it will stop overall momentum.

On a positive note, I've been working on the Ice Pyramid more. Here's one of my new areas:



Now that I'm designing an actual open world (as before, when it was only pieces that I later put together), I have a lot more creative direction than I did previously.

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That's it for today.

[Mark Mayers]

Update 23: 03/14/2015

Happy Pi Day everyone!

The last few days has essentially been the Unity 5 struggle for me.

I tried to upgrade and was met with a large amount of difficulty.
This is mainly due to two things; my fog and particles being broken.

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Apparently, Unity changed the way that fog works. Certain shaders have to manually add fog handling macros.

Fog does not render on certain objects, in my case, water.

I rewrote the shader manually, and was met with... interesting results.

I was then told I should just upgrade the standard assets for Unity. I don't know why I didn't think of that?

So I did, and was greeted with the same bug.
Ironically, I wrote the shader exactly the same as the 'upgraded' Unity 5 asset

Check out this thread that I created and compare the code for mine vs the official version... it's hysterical.

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For my particles, I am using the excellent TC Particles.
Unfortunately, the asset is not currently compatible with Unity 5, so my particles do not render.

However, the developer *has* submitted an upgrade for Unity 5.
It's just something that I have to wait on.

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I don't really have much in terms of new content for this entry. I've been mostly dealing with this.

At this point, I don't know if I'll keep using Unity 5 and find alternatives, or revert to Unity 4.
I've spent about ~16 hours this week on 'upgrading' to Unity 5, so I'm not sure.

At least I know more about shader code

[Mark Mayers]

Update 23.5: 03/14/2015

So this is just a mini-update on a recent development.

I decided to go with Dx11 simulated water, which was an excellent decision.
The fog works better than perfectly, and it looks *so* much better than before.



I guess I'm sticking with Unity 5 then  

The particles are still broken for the time being, but I can wait.

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Ok, that's it for today

[Christian]

Oh wow, I haven't checked on this in a while. The new areas and particle effects looks absolutely gorgeous. I want to see more of that world

[Mark Mayers]

Oh wow, I haven't checked on this in a while. The new areas and particle effects looks absolutely gorgeous. I want to see more of that world

Thanks! There's definitely an emphasis on exploration, so I'm glad that even from just a few screenshots and gifs that aspect appealing!

Progress is slow, but steady

[Mark Mayers]

Update 24: 03/21/2015

It's been a really productive past week for me! As such, this will be a detailed entry.

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I finally got Unity 5 completely working, and the game looks great with the new graphical features.

One of the major new additions, as I mentioned in my earlier post, was the addition of dynamic water.

I'm using the Suimono Water System, which is simulated Dx11 water.
The effects are *really* cool. The water surface is tessellated and has dynamic waves, with real time reflections.

Of course all of this is a huge performance hit..... However, I've been doing general scene optimizations.
Mainly by removing the plethora of arbitrary pixel lights I had placed around the scene, I still maintain >60FPS @ 1440p in all areas.



I also decreased loading times for scene transitions by about 5x.

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I've been revising the environment of World 1, the Void Canyon, to accommodate the new ocean water system.
Here's a screenshot of the revised introductory area, showing off the ocean water:



There is an infinite ocean mode in Suimono which is what I'm using.
The canyon is now surrounded by this infinite ocean, with a constant sea level.
I've actually sculpted the terrain so there is a logical flow of ocean between the various areas.

I simulate tidal erosion with the terrain using algorithms, taking into account the height of the sea.
The result is interesting, as there is noticeable wear on the terrain near the ocean.

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I've been taking full advantage of the new physically based rendering and dynamic reflections in Unity 5.
The terrain material in World 1 is now something resembling anthracite (essentially coal).

Here's a screenshot of how the new materials look.



To get the cracked cliff look for the terrain, I run a thermal erosion simulation.

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Finally, I redid the first level to be much more elegant/simple.
It's essentially a simplistic version of the golden ratio level that I showed in an earlier post.



I'm hoping this will playtest well; at least from a design perspective it's much better than before.

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Next weekend I'm showing at the Boston University Day of Devs.
Their Twitter is here, and the Facebook page for the event is here.

It's my first full day event, so I'm hoping things go well. If you're local be sure to stop by! It's totally free too.

[Mya]

Good grief, this looks lovely. What are your artistic inspirations?

[Mark Mayers]

Good grief, this looks lovely. What are your artistic inspirations?

Thanks!!

I would say nature itself. A lot of the environment themes are similar to something in real life.
In the case of the first world, it's like Glacial Moraines.



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I also like fractals, and other 'algorithmic art.' So I try to incorporate those artistic themes into the game.



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I don't come from an art background, so really I just make what I think looks interesting.
 
The art of the game is also a process of iterative refinement. Finding a style for the game that is appealing and unique is something that developed over time!

[Mark Mayers]

Update 25: 03/30/2015

The last week was extremely busy; so I haven't had a chance to write an update.

I was preparing a new demo for the BU Day of the Devs, in which I had an excellent time participating in.
I also learned some incredibly valuable lessons in regards to design.

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There were some pretty awful bugs in the new demo. I simply didn't have time to solve them.
In particular, I had to completely reset the demo at one section since particles wouldn't render.

There's also a glitch with aiming, that makes the game near impossible to play.
In my previous update I explained how I revised the aiming mechanic.

However, there seems to be a bug where the 'aim assist' doesn't work correctly, and the player has to arbitrarily guess timing, like the game was before.
This made some levels very difficult to play.

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The first level was interesting from a playtesting perspective.



This level is based around timing, and establishes that the singularity explodes after a brief period of time.
Some players simply didn't get this concept, that all puzzles are timing based.

I skipped the 'tutorial exposition' as an experiment. It jumps right into the first puzzle without showing what the mechanics do.

About ~60% of the people could get through with no explanation, which is great, that means I'm doing my job as a designer. However, I want that number to be 100%.
I showed my friend the 'exposition' to the last demo, and he said... "Wow, everything makes sense with that level now." Note taken, an introduction is absolutely necessary.

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There were some people who came to the expo who probably aren't great at first person PC games.
That's ok, but the game might be a little bit too difficult for some.
However, the difficulty is part of the game's identity.

The game is highly skill based, which people seem to like.

This level in particular, the last level, only one person managed to complete.



The player has to shoot the singularity at the blue node in the distance three times in a short amount of time, otherwise he/she falls into the ocean and dies.

It's actually exactly the same level as a previous prototype, but the location is slightly revised.
Despite being impossibly difficult, many people said this was their favorite level.

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I also learned I need to get better at talking to press. I had someone interview me and I totally botched it; my mind went blank halfway through recording.

I had to describe what was happening on screen (this was for an audio recording only, for a radio station) and I couldn't describe it adequately.
I think it was due to the lack of sleep, and the fact it was my first real in person interview.

Luckily my friend was there to take over, and the person interviewing said 'I'll fix it in post.' Hah.

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After I fix some critical bugs and revise aiming, I feel like I have a solid basis for the rest of the content I have planned/prototyped.

Even with the bugs, people really liked the demo which made me happy to see.

I'm going to take a break for a few days to avoid burnout (and also think about more about my playtesting notes).

I also want to play Bloodborne and Axiom Verge. Unfortunately, when you're making games you don't always have time to play games

[jamesprimate]

keeps looking better and better! bummed i didnt get a chance to check it at BUDOTD. someday!

I also want to play Bloodborne and Axiom Verge. Unfortunately, when you're making games you don't always have time to play games Smiley

sooo terribly true. just checked steam and havent played a game "for fun"in 2 months 

[Mark Mayers]

keeps looking better and better! bummed i didnt get a chance to check it at BUDOTD. someday!

I also want to play Bloodborne and Axiom Verge. Unfortunately, when you're making games you don't always have time to play games Smiley

sooo terribly true. just checked steam and havent played a game "for fun"in 2 months 

The indie struggle! I do play games for 'research' purposes as well, however.
(But that's probably me rationalizing taking time away from my own game, haha)

And thanks! Are you guys going to BFIG? That's not until September though.
There definitely are more local events, I'm just not immediately aware.
Looking forward to seeing more of Rain World too!

[Mark Mayers]

Update 26: 04/02/2015

I spent the past few days experimenting with some strange shaders.

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I was daydreaming yesterday what it would be like to be extremely close to a black hole.
How would physics work? How would someone perceive visual space?

Imagine through some impossible technology, inside each pyramid of the Desolus was a massive black hole.
The horizon would curve due to light bending from gravitational distortion.
The sky would be the earth itself, and at the center of it, a black hole.

This idea came from this thread about Lovecraft's R'yleh, and non-euclidean geometry.

Particularly this supposed realization as a picture (taken from the thread):



From a physics standpoint, could a black hole cause a surface to bend like that?
Could I do that in a video game?

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My experiments proved to be successful.
You *really can* make the ceiling the floor.
This can be accomplished through a vertex shader.



From a conceptual standpoint, it works as follows; it's actually fairly simple:
-Take the world position of the main camera
-Find the distance between vertex v, and the camera
-Add a factor to the vertex coordinates based off of that distance


For reference, this is what the base environment actually looks like, before the shader:




Here is a gif that shows what effect this creates when giving world objects this new shader.
The perception of objects are warped to simulate the bending of light from gravity.

Note that I just use a default diffuse as the base shader, and disabled water/most particles, nothing fancy.


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Despite how cool this is as an experiment, it has several downsides.

1- It totally f***ks with Unity's frustum culling. Unity doesn't know when a curved object is actually rendered or not, and it will disappear when it normally *isn't* rendered, but is still visible on screen.



2- The vertex distortion effect has to be added to *every* shader in the game. I don't know of a quick way of doing this, and am bound to run into complications. Ideally, I want to do this at runtime, where it adds that code snippet to every shader/material that is rendering. I don't know if this is possible.

3- Player disorientation. Would people actually want to play the game if it was like this?
I think this idea deserves to be explored a bit more. At least I know it's possible, but it might not be practical.

The only other game this was done in that I can think of.... is Animal Crossing.
It actually does the *normal* way of how a horizon works. This is in reverse

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I'll probably look into this more, but I might put it on the shelf for a bit.
I'm not quite sure if this will make it into the game, but at least I had fun tinkering with things!

[Mark Mayers]

Update 27: 04/09/2015

I spent the week prototyping what I call The Eye.

Essentially, The Eye is my version of the scan visor from Metroid Prime.

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Here's what it currently looks like.



I think the scan visor was one of my favorite features in the Prime games.
This post makes some really good points why it's such a great mechanic.

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I've been trying to do something similar in Desolus.
However, there are differences in what I want for my game vs. the Metroid Prime trilogy.

The first is the way UI works in the game.

Desolus has a very non-traditional UI.

There's no health bar, ammo, crosshair, etc.
The design of the game has eliminated the need for these elements.

Metroid Prime is UI heavy; that's one of the critical parts of the experience.
You are *in* the power suit; your visor and HUD are extremely important from both a descriptive and narrative context.

The second is depth of narrative, content, and scope of development.

The world of Metroid Prime is visually alive with detail, and you interact with the world through the scan visor.

There is a plethora of content via art assets in Metroid Prime.
I can't possibly produce any type of equivalent by myself (nor do I want to, I'll leave that to Nintendo/Retro).
 
So how can I achieve that level of detail?

I may add narrative through The Eye, little snippets of knowledge.
The player can fill in the blanks, which adds a level of imaginative detail.

Fortunately, ambiguity is important in creating the atmosphere I'm going for.... so perhaps this lack of information suits the game itself.

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Here is a gif of how The Eye works:



When you're 'looking' at relevant object, the iris/pupils will expand.
This separates what is important/unimportant.

When you stare at something long enough, the iris and pupils grow large, and display narrative text.

I might do some asset copying/instantiation so a mini version of the object will rotate around inside the pupil, if I want to make it fancy. I could then display descriptive text below.

I could also do different things with iris colors; different colors correspond to different mechanics/objects.

It's weird, visually/conceptually interesting, and original; like the rest of the game (haha).
The actual implementation needs more work, but at least the visual effect is cool.

I think this definitely has potential.

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This is going to be a huge month for me.
I've presenting at a local expo on the 23rd, and giving a talk/demo on the 28th.

IndieCade submissions are due on May 1st. I'll likely shoot for that as well.

Follow me on Twitter if you're interested; I'll post updates there!

[Jasmine]

Oooooooh, my goodness.

Do you have a sample of the music? If there will be any. I would love to hear the audio side of this visual landscape.

The potential experience that you will be creating for the players is awe-inspiring. I'm curious to know how all the aspects of the game (aural/visual) will work in tandem with one another.