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[mushbuh]

digging the stairs willy. Have you played captain toad btw? I think you might find it interesting. They manage to pack a lot of puzzles into such small levels its been really inspiring for me.

[William Chyr]

digging the stairs willy. Have you played captain toad btw? I think you might find it interesting. They manage to pack a lot of puzzles into such small levels its been really inspiring for me.

I haven't played Captain Toad yet, as I don't own a Wii U. It sounds like something I might enjoy. Perhaps I should find someone with a Wii U and see if I can borrow it for a little bit.

[William Chyr]

Devlog Update #133 - 12/21/2014

Long day again today. Too tired to write up much. Basically continued to work on new level, organizing the object hierarchy, adding hallways, rooms, etc.

Here's a screenshot:

[William Chyr]

Devlog Update #134 - 12/30/2014

Back to working on the game after spending the holidays with the family. Really needed the break!

I'm going to start creating a series of perfectly looping structures as a kind of "visual study" and side-research project. These may work their way into game, maybe not. Mostly it's a way to get my creative juices going. Sort like exercise reps to complement the main activity.

The very first one:


Playing with some colors:


Now we're getting somewhere!

[William Chyr]

Devlog Update #135 - 12/31/2014

Perfect loop for today. Really love this one. I think I will make one of these a day for... a year? I'm having a lot of fun making these and they'll make for a really interesting visual research study. Perhaps even pick the best ones and put them in a room in the game as an easter egg.

[Christian]

Those would make for cool loading screens. Or place them in the environments like the world's "sun"

[Slader16]

Woah, how did you do that?

[William Chyr]

Those would make for cool loading screens. Or place them in the environments like the world's "sun"

Loading screen is a good idea. I shared it on twitter, and that's what most of the suggestions were. I actually didn't even occur to me when I was making it.

I do have a really long load screen at the start of the game, since everything is loaded at once, so something like these, with perhaps slower rotation, could work really well. Maybe I could even randomly generate it each time, so every time you start up the game, you get a different spinning thingamajig.

I'd love to also have a museum/gallery space, sort of similar to what's in Antichamber, but like 20 times bigger, with multiple stories and sections, basically showing off a bunch of these. Could maybe even do some weird Escher visual tricks, like looking into a window and seeing an infinite number of these inside of it.

Woah, how did you do that?

The short answer: math

Long answer: It's basically a lot of sine and cosine equations controlling rotation and movement, with a lot of gameobjects all embedded within one another. Each movement is quite simple, but when you start to replicate the objects and layer them on top of one another, you can get some really crazy looking shapes.

[Slader16]

I guess this is another reason why I need to learn Trig

Thanks!

[Quicksand-S]

The gameplay sounds good, but since I haven't played it all I can really comment on is the visuals. They're incredible. I really love the faded colors and the "inked" lines. Looks really great. I like every one of the screenshots on your website.

[William Chyr]

I guess this is another reason why I need to learn Trig

Thanks!

Yeah, trig and linear algebra are pretty handy for game development.

The gameplay sounds good, but since I haven't played it all I can really comment on is the visuals. They're incredible. I really love the faded colors and the "inked" lines. Looks really great. I like every one of the screenshots on your website.

Really glad to hear that you like the visuals! A lot of work has gone into the art style. I'm getting back into level designing and prototyping game mechanics, so will be talking more about gameplay here in the coming weeks.

[Paul]

They would make the greatest loading screens! I really love the look of this game in general. It's so unique. It's very clear and uncluttered and every screenshot I've seen could be a desktop background!

Looking forward to these gameplay updates :D

[William Chyr]

Devlog Update #136 - 01/01/2015

First post of 2015! Happy New Year, everyone!



I've continued working on the new level. It's almost ready.

I learned an important lesson about programming these last few days: the most elegant solution isn't always the best one. I spent two days trying to create a full comprehensive systematic approach for the new mechanic I'm experimenting with, so that it would work with n components in any permutation. It was a pretty large and complex undertaking, and I kept tripping over the logic of everything.

After two days with nothing to show for it, I decided to go for a hack solution instead. For this approach, it only worked for one case. So for example, I would state specifically what the end state had to be, instead of allowing the programming to dictate if the end state was correct.

It took way less time to implement. Within an hour, the mechanic was working in the game. This is particularly important, because at this stage, I'm still prototyping the design of the mechanic. It's more important that I get it ready enough so that I can put it in front of someone and have them try it out, and see if there are any design issues. The player isn't going to see the code behind it, so the elegant solution really doesn't add anything.

It may come in handy later, when it's needed, but for now, there's no reason to implement that. The most important thing to optimize for is time. If the mechanic works and I need a comprehensive system, great, I'll write it. But if the mechanic doesn't work, then I just saved myself a lot of time.



RELATIVITY has been selected by Rock, Paper, Shotgun as one of the games that could be good in 2015!

I'm incredibly honored to be on this list. I was actually a little bummed at first because I was looking under "puzzle games" and didn't see RELATIVITY on there, but it turns it was listed under "exploration games". This is quite interesting, because I think even though the project did start as very puzzle-oriented, I think the focus has indeed shifted more to exploration. Funny that Rock, Paper, Shotgun had a better sense of how to categorize the game than I did

Oh, and just to clarify, the game did not release yesterday. I don't know where they got that date from...

Finally, here's today's perfect looping gif:

[William Chyr]

Devlog Update #137 - 01/02/2015

World 2

World 2 (working title for the level) is now feature-complete. It's pretty buggy, but it is playable. Let the playtesting commence!

It's probably going to go through at least 10 iterations before I figure out what the right pacing and puzzle sequence is. If I had to guess, it's probably way too difficult and tedious at the moment. We will see. The important thing is now I have something concrete to work with and can start tweaking the design.

Here's a bunch of screenshots of the level at the moment:









Like World 1, there is also a mico/macro relationship between different puzzles and layers of mechanics. I'm really interested in seeing if players are able to pick up on it.

Infinite Staircase World

After working on this issue on and off for quite some time, I finally figured out the correct spacing between each repetition instance in the infinite staircase world.



The secret is in the L-shaped platforms. They help to even out the spacing and makes it much easier to do then relying on the staircases alone.

Perfect Loop

Finally, here's today's perfect loop. Been keeping it up for 4 days so far!

[Kyzrati]

I've seen Relativity on /r/gamedev several times before and didn't notice you have a TIGS devlog! Wonderful, now I don't have to wait as long for updates and can get all the extra visual goodies! Game's looking awesome. The looping structures are great, and I like the idea of randomizing them for the loading screen.

So the RPS article got the release date wrong (there was just so much information in that article that they invariably got quite a few details wrong, actually*), but do you have a general idea of when the game might be done?

(*They also published the "tentative" release date for my own game, so now I have to use it as a deadline to make that happen =p.)

[William Chyr]

I've seen Relativity on /r/gamedev several times before and didn't notice you have a TIGS devlog! Wonderful, now I don't have to wait as long for updates and can get all the extra visual goodies! Game's looking awesome. The looping structures are great, and I like the idea of randomizing them for the loading screen.

So the RPS article got the release date wrong (there was just so much information in that article that they invariably got quite a few details wrong, actually*), but do you have a general idea of when the game might be done?

(*They also published the "tentative" release date for my own game, so now I have to use it as a deadline to make that happen =p.)

Thanks so much! Ya, I've been posting on the Screenshot Saturday threads on /r/gamedev quite regularly. I actually wish there were more opportunities there to shore on-going work.

And yes, this is the best place to stay up-to-date on the project. It's the place I update the most often with the most level of details.

With regards to when I'm hoping to get the game done: my plan is to have a rough layout of the entire game by March/April of this year. Throughout all of 2015, I'm going to be playtesting later parts of the game, but I'd like to be able to do a full start-finish playtest soon.

There are still a few mechanics that need to get worked out, but I'm really crossing my fingers for sometime this year to finish the game. We will see!

(It's always good to set deadlines. Even if the work doesn't get totally finished, I do find deadlines give a huge boost of productivity and helps one stay on track).

[Kyzrati]

Sounds good! And yeah, even for a motivated person such as myself, having a deadline does provide a productivity boost. Cool things can result when you are allowed to follow your creative whims and keep adding features and improvements, but then you tend to never finish

I guess you've settled on the "sketchy" look as the primary aesthetic for Relativity? I hope so, because I like it best, though I also notice it isn't shown *at all* in the OP. Maybe you should fix that?

[William Chyr]

Sounds good! And yeah, even for a motivated person such as myself, having a deadline does provide a productivity boost. Cool things can result when you are allowed to follow your creative whims and keep adding features and improvements, but then you tend to never finish

I guess you've settled on the "sketchy" look as the primary aesthetic for Relativity? I hope so, because I like it best, though I also notice it isn't shown *at all* in the OP. Maybe you should fix that?

Yes, you're right, I do need to add some of the latest screenshots to the OP. I kept putting it off for a while because I was still experimenting with the art style, and it was constantly changing. There's still some work to be done, but I think now I've finally found the style for this game.

For a while, it was too much like Portal, then it was too much like Antichamber, but now it seems to be more or less unique to Relativity. Will update it today!

[William Chyr]

Devlog Update #138 - 01/03/2015

Started to cut together a video as part of my submission for the Experimental Gameplay Workshop at GDC. I submitted last year, but didn't get in. However, the game has improved quite a bit, so I think my chances of getting in are much better this year.

Keeping my fingers crossed!

New Level - Infinite Library

Started working on a new level. Calling it the "Infinite Library" for now. It's inspired by Borge's short story "The Library of Babel", and also the Wan Shi Tong's Library from "Avatar: The Last Airbender". If I had to guess, I'm guessing the writers for that Avatar episode got the inspiration from Borge's story.

Anyway, here are some screenshots of the level. It's all work-in-progress, hence the weird color scheme (it's there to help me see the different componenents):







This is what it looks like to fall through the middle part of it:



And finally, today's Perfect Loop:

[Djenne]

Hey!

I just made this account to be able to comment on here, because damn, RELATIVITY is one amazing game.
Anyway, you got me inspired to take a look at some Escher drawings, and I thought to share my ideas I got; they might be useful, they might be completely useless.




I thought you could maybe work this piece, and similar pieces, into your 'gallery', maybe you can use it as a basis for another perfect loop?
Or you could use pieces like http://www.mcescher.com/gallery/recognition-success/snakes/




Of course, one of his most known pieces, but it'd be awesome if you could make your water mechanism work in a way so that you could build this thing inside of Relativity; maybe in a 'relax' level, and you maybe can put two of your loops on the top of the towers?




I just thought this piece had some nice architecture, which might be useful for you. Also, maybe a Tower of Babel-like building would be nice?


Oh, and one last question:
did your choices for the different gravity-colors come from this piece?