A shorty this week. Check my blog post if you want more details:
https://louardongames.blogspot.com/2017/09/suzy-cube-update-september-22-2017.html

For the rest of you... This week was mostly spent decorating a couple levels. I lost a day to some first aid training but still managed to finish off a decoration pass on World 3..




Level 3-3 got a bunch of doodads and greebles thrown about. I know it probably looks pretty mindless, but I'm always careful not to let the decorations interfere with gameplay. Whenever possible, in fact, I strive to enhance the gameplay with the use of props. The patches of dark stones, of instance, should help to highlight the way forward.




The narrow walkways of the World 3 boss level made decoration a bit trickier. It was, basically, impossible to add any props to the walkways without getting in the player's way. I ended up opting for rocky blocks on the back wall and the occasional snow patch along the path. At least the goal area got a few decorative touches to compensate.

Finally, I messed up my timezones and flaked on my meeting with Noodlecake... 
After much apologizing, we've rescheduled for Monday. I'm excited and anxious to start working in parallel with them to see how their contributions will help the game along.
Well, that's all I've got for you folks this week. See you all next time!

The Buzz looks fantastic, man! And the booster anim is very convincing.

As for why I brought up making the power-up plants on the world map limited in some way was basically in response to someone wondering why you would need more that one copy of each plant as the player could always backtrack to where the plant was.

As I think about it more, though, I would probably be more of the mind that you should simply have shops which sell all the as-of-yet discovered power-ups and to have enough of these shops to discourage tedious backtracking to find one. IMO

Oh.. and while I'm shitting on one of my most favouritest projects to follow... I think it's time... I think you know what I mean... i think it's time to change the design of the weird ducky animals to little robots to fit the theme of the game... I'm sorry, man... It had to be said.

It's looking great! Been a long time since I checked this out. Good work! 

Why thank you! It's very nice of you to check back in and say so!

So, just this morning, I was able to run the game from the version downloaded from Noodlecake's Git repo! Big step! This means we can now all start contributing to the project.. Though I haven't tried pushing changes yet... Soon...

Once I had to, basically, lock in changes so Noodlecake could take over the project, I took the opportunity to work on some translation. I finished off the French and continued to working back and forth with a buddy of mine on the German.



I also wrote a couple of pieces for the ol' blog. One is an analogy for anyone having trouble over-polishing aspects of their game the player will never notice:
https://louardongames.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-pyramid-of-polish-recognising.html

The other is my latest entry in the long neglected Lessons from Suzy Cube series:
https://louardongames.blogspot.com/2017/09/lessons-from-suzy-cube-level-1-1-how.html

In other news. Before locking things down for the SVN to Git handoff, I did get around to some level improvements and decoration.

My recent redesign of level 3-2 has proven somewhat problematic in the hands of testers so I made some changes which will, hopefully, help players who were getting lost. I added some teleporter shortcuts to cut down on backtracking.



For Level 5-2, I changed up a section where the player must run over a series of platforms which only appear in the nick of time. The issue being that testers were being too timid and there's a big rolling snowball relentlessly chasing Suzy the whole time.



I had, originally, placed a single coin on each platform, but I decided to add an additional coin between them to further highlight the safe path. Lesson: If your player is being chased by a big deadly snowball, it's too much to ask them to notice subtle clues.



And four gussied up levels...









Well, that's it for this week's update. I'm off to see if I remember hot to use Git! See you all next week!

This week's update is focused on level improvements and a bit of spruced up effects.



As I'm currently coordinating with Noodlecake to get them set up and contributing to the project, I decided to simply address simple bugs and cosmetic issues this week. I did, however, complete design work on Level 3-2, seen above. All that was needed was for me to add some collectibles and add the darkness gradients around the outside to complete the effect of spelunking into an ancient tomb!

I decided to start decorating some of the more solid levels of the game to the level of decoration found in the World 1 levels. First to get this treatment has been Level 1-4 (formerly 2-3). The level has been in good shape, design wise, for a while now so I felt confident getting in there and adding some decorative props. I also added and tweaked some camera triggers for a more polished experience.



Level 5-3 didn't get a decoration pass but I did give it some attention, adding more coins to the level to allow players more opportunities to earn extra lives.



I also tweaked one of the jumping challenges late in the level which had been proving problematic with testers for a while now. Even I had a hard time avoiding the spikes in there old configuration. I think this new setup is much more fair.



Finally, I spent a little time tweaking a couple of effects related to Suzy herself. One was Suzy's spawn in sequence.



The change is subtle, but those little shockwaves as the Spawn Box bounces coincide with a bouncing sound which adds life to the previously silent sequence.



Suzy's death also got a little extra touch up for the first time since... Forever, actually! Again, the changes are subtle, but where the old effect only included the cubes, this new version has some extra little flourishes for good measure.

That's it for this week's update. I've got some stuff lined up for next week, but I don't want to make any promises. Noodlecake and I had a Skype meeting to discuss scheduling and it looks like Monday will be devoted to getting them access to my project repository so they can download everything on their side and get it uploaded to their own local repository. Once we've confirmed we can both still build the game locally from the new project we will be scheduling a formal kickoff meeting for the project. Given that I have no idea how any of this is going to go, I can't really guarantee what else I'll get around to next week. No matter what, I invite you all back here to find out!

Your work on the World Map has been fantastic! You clearly have a good sense of what 'feels good' with details like the camera focusing on areas rather than simply scrolling along with the player.

Really like the crates blocking the paths idea too.

About the powerup plants. Would you consider making them 1 offs, or grow back on a timer?

Been busy redesigning Level 3-2 this week.

I know, I know... I said I was done with levels... But when you gotta do it, you gotta do it! So, "why?", then you ask... The old design, lacked a good memorable hook. It's only defining characteristic was that it was played entirely from a side view and I just didn't feel that was enough.




This new design still has you, essentially, playing in 2D, but requires that you flip between the front and back section of each room in order to proceed by hitting switches etc. I also like how this new design, with its central room and light puzzle elements calls back to the World 2 pyramid themed level.



So, what about the old design? Well, since it was a complete level, I would hate to just scrap it, so I plan on reusing it as a Special World level.

"But if it wasn't good enough for the main game, why would it be good enough for the Special World!?" I hear you screaming at your monitor. The issue with the old design wasn't that it was bad, I just didn't feel it was distinct enough. I want all the main levels to be memorable and offer a bit of a different experience. The old Level 3-2 was a fine level, it just had a bit of a week hook, that's all. Since my goal with the Special World levels is to offer challenge over variety, I can use the old level as a starting point and build in some extra challenge for the expert players who manage to unlock it.

Well, I've still got some work to do on this new level. I've got coins and other pick-ups to add and the ending section still isn't build. So on that note, I bid you farewell and until next time!

Congrats on getting a publisher!

Also, with Noodlecake helping with porting

This is exciting, are you able to say what the new platform(s) are?

Sorry, Ishi, but no. Not ready to announce anything yet... Though.. mobile in a broader sense is looking way more likely now ^_~

Congrats on going with Noodlecake!

I know, right!? Tweaking physics settings!? Well, thanks to a recent post on the Unity blog, I was given a better understanding of what certain settings do.

Could you post the url?

Sure thing!
https://blogs.unity3d.com/2017/08/10/spotlight-team-best-practices-project-setup/

Regarding Shells...

I painted myself into an old-school corner in Suzy Cube by including lives. They became the justification for coins.. Well.. to the player.. design-wise, coins have their own value...

I have to say, I'm into what you're proposing to do with shells and I agree that 'growing' shortcuts is quite thematic.

As for the shell penalty on death... Perfect opportunity for communication by having the shells fly out of little Leilany upon death.. Kinda like rings flying out of Sonic when he get's hit.

Anywho.. As always, she's lookin' slick AF. Keep it up!

I can FINALLY say it...

Noodlecake will be publishing Suzy Cube!!

In addition to the usual publishing duties, they've also agreed to take on some development tasks to help me make Suzy the best she can be. I want to be clear, though, we are not moving the goalpost and are not growing the scope of the project. The game was a lot for me to take on alone in the first place and Noodlecake's involvement will help ensure you all get to play a solid, polished version of what I set out to make. Also, with Noodlecake helping with porting and additional localization, it also means more people will get to enjoy Suzy, which is fantastic news!

In other news...

Most of my week has been spent cleaning up code comments and trimming fat from my project files in anticipation of actually having to let someone else in there (YIKES!). And I also went ahead and solved an issue a lot of testers had been complaining about forever...



Yep... Suzy can finally find her own damn way out of doorways! It used to be that after getting teleported to the doorway exit, players would have to manually move her out of the doorway... Annoying, I know... Well, no more! Thanks to a new script which, when triggered, can override Suzy's controls, she can now walk herself back out of the dark. What's neat is, as far as Suzy's concerned, the player it still the one holding down on the joystick!

This script might come in handy again when it comes time to make a controls tutorial animation...

Well, there you go, folks! Cat's out of the bag! We've been in talks since GDC and I'm glad to finally have all the papers signed and the hands shaken to be able to share the news with you.

So, please help me in welcoming Noodlecake to the world of Suzy Cube!

Your world map is looking pretty dang sweet, man! Really like the path reveal and the "jumping into level" anim as well!

Why, hello there! How good of you to join me!

I have hardly received any videos from the current round of testing which is not what I was hoping. I'm going to have to check my TestFlight stats to see how many installs I've had to see if it's a problem with folks getting the build or not...

So, failing that, I've been doing little bug fixes, keeping 3rd party assets up to date and tweaking physics settings on the project.

I know, right!? Tweaking physics settings!? Well, thanks to a recent post on the Unity blog, I was given a better understanding of what certain settings do. So I changed the project's internal physics timing to better match the target 60fps framerate while also lowering the physics iterations count. This second change should lighten the load on physics calculations at the cost of accuracy. Since Suzy Cube mostly relies on the physics engine only for detection, I figured it would be a safe bet. So far, it looks like the game is running more smoothly on all platforms I've tested... So that's good news!

The only thing this change broke was the behaviour of the Double Jump's float ability. I made some changes to the script and got it back in working order.



The last few days have actually been spent working off script on a feature I had decided to defer a long time ago. Save Slots!



Now, folks sharing a device can each have their own save slot! Since I use PlayerPrefs for saving data, and it all gets saved to a single file, my implementation simply involved adding a suffix to my old keys. So, the key for storing coin total, which used to be "coins" now looks like "slot1coins" or "slot2coins" etc.

I'd say the work was about 50% coding the support for the feature and 50% building the interface for accessing/deleting the save slots.



All properly localized, of course!

Aaaand I've, finally, put ink to paper on a publishing contract! Not ready to announce with who yet, but stay tuned for more on that!

That's it for this week. See you all next Friday!

[Time.time]

I'm back home and it shows!
I've got a localization solution up and running and I think I've accounted for all text currently in game.



I settled on CSVs for storing and loading my translation data. Google Sheets makes it super easy to store/edit/export these using separate pages in a single spreadsheet. What's nice is that I've made all pages inherit their left column from the English page, so as I add new entries, all other language pages are automatically updated!

In the game, I simply load the appropriate CSV into a static dictionary using the left column as keys and the right column as values. I wrote a simple static function which takes a string as input, uses it as a key to search the dictionary and then simply returns the result or an appropriate error. This makes it really easy to call from any script which needs to dynamically populate text fields.

For text fields which are populated right in a unity scene...



I wrote a handy little script which I can attach to any object containing a text field. The script simply pulls the content from the text field, feeds it to the translator function and replaces it with the returned result. YAY! So in the shot above, for example, the prefab for the Settings Panel has a text field at the top containing the word "SETTINGS". In the Spanish localization file, the key "SETTINGS" corresponds to the value "AJUSTES". The script takes what's in the field (SETTINGS) and replaces it with the value (AJUSTES). Easy peasy!

Remember folks... If it looks, at all, like your project is going somewhere, don't keep shoving it full of static text. Take the time to properly source your text from external files to save you many more headaches down the road!

ALSO! I fixed a little timing issue I had with these guys...



It was a subtle one too. Depending on how fast the level was loaded, the timing of the beat-blocks would end up offset compared to the music. So, like, loading from the level select screen... probably fine... reloading after death (faster)... de-synced... Booh!

To this I say.. .WHY DID I NOT LOOK THIS UP BEFORE!!?? I literally found an analogue to Time.time called AudioSource.time!!!! I literally just had to search the Unity site for "Timing elements to music"!!!

Do your research, kids!

Anywho. I literally switched out Time.time for AudioSource.time, fixed a small issue it introduced and BAM! problem solved! The beat-blocks now can't de-sync from the music as they get their timing directly from the music's audio source timer!

A nice productive week! I like it!
Check back in next week. I'm hoping to put out a new test build this afternoon, so I'll hopefully have some test-led tweaks to a new set of levels to share with you then.
Until then!

Oh! Neat! I had noticed them using it to look "through" Mario when he's in front of the camera, but I hadn't noticed them using it for mario being behind stuff I do think this is the first time they've handled it this way. In order for actual alpha to work properly, (with the whole model appearing as a single translucent silhouette) I figure you would have to render your character silhouette to a separate buffer and then draw that buffer to your screen as a single translucent image. The dither pattern doesn't require this kind of buffer.

Ah interesting, I hadn't considered the overdraw problem with using alpha. Maybe some usage of the stencil buffer would be possible to ensure each pixel only gets rendered once (e.g draw only if stencil = 0, and write 1 into stencil buffer when drawing). But I like how the dither looks though anyway!

LOL!! I don't know how I missed your reply when you posted it. As you probably noticed, that's what I ended up implementing. Thanks for the suggestion! If they keep being that good, I've got to look through your replies more carefully!

Sorry, no multilingual support yet. Figuring out the best way to load stuff and the best format in which to store localization text has proven to be more trouble than I originally expected.

I know, I know, excuses excuses! Truth is, I haven't been concentrating on the game much this week. Little bits of work here and there mostly related to file loading and tester gameplay review have been disrupted by shopping trips as I attempt to cross everything off my wife's and my shopping list before returning to Caracas.



Among a handful of small changes like adjusting the placement of text on the "Stage Cleared" screen for better placement on iPad and iPhone, I did make a rather important change to the order of four of the game's early levels.

Based on feedback from a friend, I decided to swap Level 1-4 and Level 2-3. Both snow levels. Level 1-4 has proven to simply be a bit too difficult as a World 1 level.



Similarly, I've swapped the World 1 and World 2 special levels for similar reasons.

Well, that will, unfortunately, do it for this update. If all goes well, I should be back in Caracas next week. Hopefully, I'll be less distracted once I'm back home! See you all next week.

Keep up the good work, man. I know I've said it before, but I am so looking forward to your game! If it turns out to be Steam only, I hope you;ll consider a Mac port. ^_^

Thanks for checking in! Not much to update all of you on. Working from Miami has been more distracting than I had anticipated.

Soooo... What HAVE I been doing!? Mostly little things. I spent some time doing some performance tests on my iPod Touch, trying out different quality settings and checking the results. So far, it looks like I'm not fillrate bound, as decreasing the rendering resolution has very little effect on framerate. On a more positive note, I've noticed almost no performance loss from turning on anti aliasing (2xMSAA). I'm currious to find out if it'll be feasible to leave it on for all devices.

I also got a fresh build out to a new group of testers. I'm expecting a shorter round of testing this time. The levels in the testing list are the same as those from the last round of testing. I'm, basically, just looking to see the effects of the changes made following the previous round of testing.

And, finally, I decided to take the time to implement something I've had on the back burner for a while now. It's a simple procedural bounce added to Suzy when she lands from a jump.



And, since the bounce is added to an object at the root of her hierarchy, you'll notice that it can be added on top of whatever animation follows. So, whether she's jumping in place or at a run, the bounce will add life to the landing. You'll also notice that it works quite well with the dynamic motion of her hair buns.

The idea basically comes from Super Mario Sunshine and I thought it would give Suzy a bit more of that rubbery quality many of the enemies show in their animations.

Well, that's it. Short update in light of having a hard time staying focused. I've started looking into formats for storing my text strings for easy localisation. So, maybe by next week, Suzy's going to be bilingual.. or even trilingual!?

See you all next week.

[NOT AN ANNOUNCEMENT OF SUZY CUBE IS COMING TO APPLETV!!!!]

Crazier week than I expected! Things in the city are getting more and more complicated and my work's been disrupted more than I would have though. On that whiny note!!

CHECK IT!!



Yep! That's Suzy Cube running on AppleTV.. It's also NOT AN ANNOUNCEMENT OF SUZY CUBE IS COMING TO APPLETV!!!! Just thought I would clarify that in case the caption on the photo wasn't clear enough. I've wanted to try the game out on Apple's set-top box for a while and, because of disruptions to mail services, I've only now gotten my hands on a USB-C cable, making it WAY easier to register my device and get the game running on it! I didn't put any time into implementing the Siri Remote, so I had to play using a gamepad... That being said, the game runs really well on the AppleTV and plays like a dream using a gamepad!

So, a couple firsts this week! 1. First time playing the game on Apple TV and 2. First time playing the game end to end including all Special Levels!

Yep, as promised (sort of?) last week, I finished off design work on Level 4-S and Level 5-S this week.



I mean, like, sweet ass levels, riiight!? One's all about testing Suzy's running around abilities and the other takes her maze solving capabilities to task. Fun diversions from constantly falling off rotating platforms into lava!

That's it for this week's update and I really don't know what to say about the next couple weeks. In order to preemptively avoid any possible political kerfuffle which we might experience in the coming weeks, I'm getting shipped out of the country for a bit. I don't know what sort of working space I'll have where I'll be staying, but I'll, hopefully, be able to continue making progress on the game.

On a related note, if any of you know of some game developer and/or board gaming meetup groups in Miami, let me know, I'll be staying there for the next couple weeks.

So, please join me next week when we will either find out what work I've been doing or how I've been enjoying my forced vacation to America's Wang.
See you next week!

Late in the day, dang!

I've been pulled away by embassy craziness including helping some new folks acclimatize to Caracas and a LOOONG day trip to get two months worth of parcels to Caracas from Panama... MAN!

Given that, I didn't get anything really big done this week but, instead, tackled more small improvements and fixes, for the most part. Well, except for designing Level 3-S, the World 3 Special Level!



Isn't she gorgeous!?

I also updated to Unity 2017.1 which was relatively painless! A funny thing that sometimes happens is that the engine ends up incorporating a feature I was handling through script before. This time, that was time-scale independent particle emitters. I used to handle this through a custom script which would manually update all the emitters under it based on the engine's realtime timer rather than the main timer. Now though, thanks to this:



I was able to rip my script off all the emitters using it and simply set the newly added parameter for the same effect!



I use it in cases like this when I might want to pause or slow down the game for effect but allow certain effects to play normally.

Some more small changes include, hopefully, fixing issues a tester found with the game's Launch Pads.



They are meant to be locked into place using a ground pound and then spring Suzy into the air, but this tester found it was possible to have them misbehave by ground pounding them again during different parts of the sequence. I think it's all good now ^_^



I know lives are antiquated and I don't want to get into it.. Suzy Cube uses lives. OK!? That being said, I feel players aren't earning 1Ups as much as I would like, so, as I've been making other small fixes to levels, I've also been going in and adding more coins or swapping out some of the singles for 5 or 10s in order for players to have more lives for the tougher levels.



Something I found a number of testers struggling with has been these Blocker enemies. There seemed to be two issues: 1. players not figuring out the tactic of jumping to make them jump then using the recovery time to get around and 2. players figuring it out but then failing at the execution because of the tight window of opportunity. Since Suzy Cube isn't meant to be a hardcore game, I decided to simply err on the side of making this easier and added a much longer recovery time to the blocker after it jumps, hopefully giving players more time to get around and making the tactic more obvious as well.

Finally, I changed the 'behind stuff' effect for Suzy into what I had originally intended.. which is how the Mario games have been doing it forever.



I thought my previous dithering based approach would solve the blending artifacts but it turned out to introduce it's own artifacts instead. As I went in Shader Forge to fix the issue, I discovered the Stencil Buffer options! I wouldn't have even known the stencil buffer was what I was looking for if not for Simon Lavigne, who had originally helped me with the dither based implementation. Now, however, armed with the knowledge that the stencil buffer could, indeed, give me the nice silhouette effect I was looking for, I set it up and BAM! Nice translucent silhouette of Suzy when she's behind stuff!

What the use of the stencil buffer solved was the self-blending artifacts caused by a naive alpha blending approach.



Notice how you can see 'inside' Suzy? The stencil buffer allows me to discard any pixels which have already been drawn, thus eliminating parts of Suzy blending over existing parts of her.

Well, that's it for this week. Next week should be clear of distractions (I hope!?) so I should be able to finish off the last two Special Levels and, hopefully, get a new build out to a new group of testers.

See you then!