Congratulations!   

Game looks fun, must have been a lot of hard work.

 For inspiration I like to watch some videos of similar style games while I do dev stuff. I was watching some stuff on the old Blaster Master games today and also the new ones which look great, I've realized our game is going to be a lot different feeling.

 Though I got my inspiration from the Blaster Master series for GunnSwitch, I first thought of  making GunnSwitch after seeing the bad egg in the series, Blaster Master 2 for the Sega Genesis. Its a bad game overall but a couple aspects of it stood out to me.

 Blaster Master 2 has pilot sections that were not over head dungeons but zoomed in side scrolling gameplay with more of a run and gun look and feel to it. I also liked the look of the tank rotating on ramps and slopes and rotating as you jumped in the air to even out your shot projection. So thats where I started from, having a zoomed in character when out of the tank and a tank that rides over ramps and slopes smoothly, I one upped that one by having three separate wheel sections that rotate and move independently which gives a cool feel and look I think.

Thats all I really got from Blaster Master 2, the cool parts lol
As for being like classic Blaster Master style gameplay it will be lighter on the metroidvania style mazes gameplay and more like a Wonderboy MonsterLand/Shantae style open world that is explorable but mixed with run and gun action stages.




 

Here's a couple new screenshots for screenshot Saturday.

New Cave and new enemy.

Hey everyone. Hope your dev journey is going well and are looking forward to the holiday season and a new year of possibility and hard work. The years are flying by fast.

After putting in some serious work time and learning to make a game of this type for the first time ever,
(I've only made small games on mobile and on New Grounds, and a game jam once too.) I've learned that I had to bring the scope of my game down down a bit. Its only me doing most of the programming, game and level design, my brother does the artwork and helps with design ideas and critiques my work lol but that's good as it challenges me to do better.

I've stopped and started this project  a few times now over 6 years from the concept of this game being born.
I stopped enjoying what I was making as I really didn't know how to make what I wanted to make, I had hundreds of ideas and delusional dreams of grandeur and all that crap lol

Game Dev is a process that needs focus, attention, consistency, planning and patience, lots of patience/discipline/planning

After some time away, like a couple years I'm not even sure how long.. I feel I have finally got all my idea and concepts puzzle pieces coming together nicely now... now the game loop is feeling good and the game play is more interesting, and most importantly I have some direction and a plan

I realized I don't need to make a game that's super huge, its just the two of us making it and our lives have enough challenges as it is with health problems.. SO..

We are going to make an open world in the sense there are areas to explore like Wonder Boy Monster Land, Shantae and Blaster Master Style of open game play that are nice short explorable sections with light Metroidvania elements such as returning to an area with the right item or weapon to unlock blocked paths. I'm aiming for at least 5 to 10 hours max game length.

What we have planned to make is still a pretty big job even though the scope has been brought down quite a bit.

Most important thing right now is I'm actually having fun and excited about making this thing. It doesn't seem so daunting anymore.

What makes this game interesting are these key features:

- Like Blaster Master, you have a Tank that you can jump out of at anytime to explore smaller passages that the tank cant access. Using a teleport to Tank to make getting back to your tank as fast as possible and no dead ends for the player.

- You will use the main character Gunn to open paths for the Tank and the Tank will open paths for Gunn to explore.

A couple examples:

- Use a terminal with Gunn to lift your tank up to an area out of reach using an elevator lift.  
- Using your Tank as a platform to reach areas with Gunn. (Tank can grapple and hang to surfaces and be used as a platform.)

- Three explorable Islands with different biomes and characters.

- Its not just exploring the island but there are run and gun style action stages/missions that connect the story

(Around 6 in total)

- Weapon and Health Upgrading system that uses gems you find from exploring the island and completing action stages.



Challenges of making this game are:

- Having to do controls, mechanics, enemy AI and collisions for two controlled characters, your tank and your pilot Gunn.
- Figuring out how to balance the games difficulty and upgrade system
- Making it all come together

Anyways, until next time.
Cheers

Here's a few new screens of a new area in GunnSwitch I've been working on.
The Red Cave is a dangerous place to explore.
Jumping over spikey pikes in the first shot, second, grappling down dark spikey mine shafts and finally flying high off a ramp in the dark are a few things to do here.

Here is what I call the Deep Dive.
Your Tank cant get through the gap, so you jump out with the main character Gunn and dive in.

The camera quickly and smoothly zooms out and pans downwards using Lerp as Gunn falls into the abyss.

This gives you some time to react to what's coming. Spike Patches! One hit and you're sent back to your tank at the top and lose a chunk of health.

You can always bail out of a dive by pressing the transport button to safely send Gunn back to the tank quickly.

Sneaky spikes at the bottom for maximum pain lol

As you land the camera zooms back in, now you can get the rare crystals.

This is inspired a bit by those Mega Man falling through spikes stages.

Thanks! Its interesting seeing all the quality of life features Construct 3 had implemented since I stopped working on this game over 4 years ago. Its a good engine for 2d games and novices or just prototyping things quickly. Cheers

Hey. So are you using Construct 3 as well?
Interesting concept. I would say maybe make the pink fish player sprite a little bigger. Is the game controlled using a mouse pointer or an 8 way movement behavior? Like the dive in and out of the water like Eco the dolphin.
The music from the trailer is really good too.

Cheers

That explosion smoke effect looks really good. Like how it is affected by the walls.

Part Two:

Here the Red Jet chases you, launching missiles into the foreground leading up to the boss encounter.



Red Jets green orb turrets firing.



In the background the Red Jets turret orbs are destroyed and now its launching more missiles. The explosion smoke forms into a skull like Dr.Wily in the mega man series.

Here are some screenshots of the latest build. (Screenshots are a bit big. Hold mouse click on them to see the full screenshot.)

Part One:

First is a scene where you meet a rebel force, foes or friends?



This is just a scene of the first area in the game code named "Rebel Island".



A scene of the second action stage. The Red Jet spawns attack drones that scale to the foreground dropping bombs and also shoot at you. You can get some good air when jumping at the peak of the hill sides kind of like skateboarding up a half pipe.



Last is a tank mini boss, that has this charge attack that you dodge by grapple jumping over the tank shots.

Hey, its been a long time since we rock and rolled. After 4 years off of developing my game due to personal health problems I am back at it.

Returning to a project after such a long time has been a challenge, especially working with a project where I had not put enough comments in the event sheet to explain what everything is doing. But after a little time with it I've gotten a grasp on things and added comments to everything. I've made some strides and have got past some obstacles I was having four years ago.

Since returning I've added a health and weapon upgrade system with matching UI. Created some new mechanics and squashed some old lingering bugs. I finished my first proper boss battle in the game with different phases, Boss Health Bar UI.

Not bad for my first month back but there's still so much to do.
 
As a two person team my brother does the art and helps with design ideas, I do everything else. My style of development is a bit all over the place. Every time I go in with a plan I'll do some of it but then end up being pulled into working on other things I notice when working on said plan.

As an indie dev wearing so many hats, being all over the place is kind of what we do anyways.
Still though, I'm trying to be more organized in my plans of attack and get those missions done before going at something else.

Anyways, we will be updating this dev blog at least once a week with some of the progress we have made and share our challenges and triumphs.

Good luck to everyone
There's some great stuff being worked on here
Cheers

Here are two more screens of the cave before we move on, we are now focusing on an outdoor area code named "Road To Rebel Base". Its going to be a balls out action stage with plenty of pew pews and bam bams and BOOMS! Happy Gaming Everyone!

Thank you for the kind words friend, can't wait to share it with the world later this year when the 1 hour long demo showcase is released

Proud to present our new tank sprite! Our artist @Natal added more depth, higher resolution, color, and a couple adjustments. There is one or two more additions but we'll keep that a secret for now..

Here is a couple more new looks at the caves in GunnSwitch.

Here is a look at some of the stages of development in GunnSwitch's caves. From the concept art to a prototype with megaman as the test player through to a rough looking draft of the player to what we think is the look we want and didnt know we wanted lol #gamedev #indiegamedev

The development of the visuals for the caves in GunnSwitch are at 95% completion! We are very curious, as most love hungry indie devs, do you all out there like the look and theme? Your criticism and suggestions are valued! Cheers!

Been a busy start to the year with life stuff but we have managed to make progress and good strides so far. By the end of February we plan to have the cave stage 98% complete. Our to do list to reach that goal includes:

- Adding 3 layers with parallax in the background (We've tested this and it gives the area some nice depth),  crystals to be added in the foreground that distort what ever is behind them with an effect.   

- Optimizing and organizing the engine, events and and image sizes, physics use, particle counts, redundant actions, memory management etc..

- Refine enemy movements, actions and spawn points.

- Balance damage/health, difficulty, enemy spawns and attacks

- Small adjustments to lighting and scenery placement. Refine the particle effects and add new ones to replace placeholders. Small adjustments to the tanks colors and outline, add a decal to center of tank.


*****- Extra- ***** ( If time permits)

- Experiment with new lighting engine using normals and real light and shadows. (This is already looking awesome, transforms the look of the cave but we still have to test it when all layers and graphics are put in place.)

- Add a HUD (1st test)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I believe we are on pace to reach these goals but always keeping in mind that the unexpected will arise from time to time and that there are new  challenges to face after every solution. The indie gaming dev rabbit hole goes deep  :shock:

Another look at the first area in the GunnSwitch demo. The GunnSwitch demo will be released later this year!