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[chegr]

The character just hold the key like a physical object. Problem is, I didn't plan that at all in my animation sheets.

I think you've alredy seen how you problem was solved in Braid, haven't you? The key is bound to character's arm and just follow it, whenever he does. And sometimes it moves by itself, but it's very Braidish case. If you just attach key to your hand position, it will look fine, I can imagine. The only thing which could matter — the size of the key. Your character could look bulky with such a big tool in his tiny hand.

I very much like what you are doing. There is some common approach in what we do, also you do it in much richer way.
My characters don't have hands. So I have to decide this problem in other direction

[nt]

Thanks for the comments everyone! So I just came back from a trip in DC, space museum was awesome. More people should see that stuff. It's gonna be a busy week, there is a couple of things I want to finish that I've been putting away for later.

@Collarblind I did think about implementing some sort of mechanic when touching a monster, but then it really change the game a lot. Becoming a shadow himself could be very cool. I'm gonna have to try some stuff.

@chegr Yeah the braid thing is what I had in mind, but i do need to make a bunch more animation or separate the arm to make it work. Would it make it to much like braid if I was to do that too.

I kinda like the braid way of doing it, but I don't want to be a rip off. Keeping the key as an icon would solve everything, but it would remove the challenge of not walking with a key in dark places.

[The Translocator]

Make the key grow legs and follow the player...?

[rj]

oh god i actually really like that that's so cute

i'm actually 100% stealing that if you don't do it so the onus is on you

[nt]

oh god i actually really like that that's so cute

i'm actually 100% stealing that if you don't do it so the onus is on you

I would totally see a key with legs in your art style, if you have a use for it you should do it!

[rj]

genuinely flattered

[crusty]

This game is so beautiful.  Better looking than fez imo.  I'm real jealous

Can I ask how you are lighting your 2D sprites?  You said that you voxelize the tiles so they will cast shadows, but I see the main character sprite casts a shadow as well - does that come for free now in Unity?

I can't tell for sure but it seems like you have two kinds of lighting going on -- one uniform light source coming from the top left that casts shadows -- and the dynamic light sources (light cubes and lamps) which do not interact with the geometry, but provide brightness to the diffuse textures.  Is this correct?

In the levels with no light or low light do you just turn down that top-left light source?

Also one last question, are you faking the out of focus blur on the foreground elements?  An orthographic camera doesn't give you that right?

And one last last question, are you using a level editor within unity? Or are you importing it?

[Zorg]

The idea, art and animation of this project are amazing, can't wait to play it!

I'd love to see the monsters 'hidden' in the logo/title screen, something along these lines:


It's just a quick mockup, i don't recommend using 'Impact'!

[nt]

@crusty the tiles are voxel made into optimized mesh coming from cubicle, everything cast a shadow even the sprites. I'm using unity pro. The cubes light are a mix of an actual light and a transparent sprite to give a more natural pixelated look. All lights are dynamics and even the main light source will be animated in some cases. I play a lot with ambien light, main light source, tint and color correction.

The out of focus is a full screen shader on the foreground camera, orthographic let you do that no problems. The foreground is just moving opposite directions by script since there is no perspective.

I'm currently designing the levels directly in Unity, I wanted to make a level editor which might come at some point, but since I'm doing everything on the game I decided to concentrate on other things.

It would actually be cool to have a public level editor so people can make their own levels, but that would not come until I have someone who can help me with programming. I guess if the game is successful it would be added later.

@Zorg  That's pretty cool! We are still working on the title, I'm still not set on what I want the title/logo/box art to look like.

[sidbarnhoorn]

This looks very cool!

[nt]

So I've done this thing that I posted on screenshot Saturday



I thought it would be interesting to explain what is going on with the particles because I thought it was fun and simple to do. They basically look like 3D particles but since there is no perspective I had to fake that using multiple layers of 2D particles that each move separately using the multi layer script. It's kinda fun that I'm actually doing all this in 3D space but I'm stuck using 2D technique to make it work properly.



This is basically what is going on. 4 Layers of particles, the first three (P1-P3) are 2D, the third one (P4) is bound in a 3D container, since they are on the same level as the player and also because I want to have some in front of and behind the main tile layer.

I don't even know if it's interesting to anyone, It's probably basic stuff for the 2D people in here tho, but since its a devlog, I don't know, I feel like I should actually explain the stuff I do and how I do it?

moving on!

Trailer is coming very soonish. It's gonna be awesome! *maybe

Also my experience with twitter made me realize that tweetting more than 3 hashtags hide you from top hashtag search, even tho you have a popular tweet. That's kinda something people might want to know, because otherwise you only get the exposure of the first minutes of posting, instead of lingering on "top" for a day or so. Looking at top hashtags I could see that some of my tweets would have been definitely top (I humbly presume), but weren't, and now I would "kinda" want to retweet my own stuff, but I don't know if it's by the twittiquete or whatever.

so thats that.

[EdFarage]

Damn, your game looks amazing!  
I'll be following this and taking notes
Also the monsters reminds me a lot of Heart of Darkness, but cuter 

[alvarop]

I don't know if that's how you're going to implement the particles in the game, but I find that it makes it too busy, like it distracts me from what's going on where it actually matters. Maybe it's just too many particles, but that may also just be me.

[crusty]

The particles you added in combination with that pinkish cast of light is very reminiscent (to me) of being outside at twilight when it's snowing.  The reflected light in combination with the snow blindness makes things look pink (like when you are on the last run of a day of skiing and its getting dark).  I think a snowy level would look great with that lighting and those particles (assuming they drifted downwards).

I really appreciate the technical discussion/details.  And I appreciate the images that accompany it even more! It's very cool.  I know I already asked about the lighting but I would love to see an in-editor view of your lighting setup (I'm still confused about the block lights--I haven't spotted any shadows they cast). It would also be cool to look at your parallax script (do you have a formula for movement speed that is based on a z-axis offset?).

[nt]

I don't know if that's how you're going to implement the particles in the game, but I find that it makes it too busy, like it distracts me from what's going on where it actually matters. Maybe it's just too many particles, but that may also just be me.

Yeah there might be too many particles. In full screen it actually look way better tho. I have some tweaking to do.

The particles you added in combination with that pinkish cast of light is very reminiscent (to me) of being outside at twilight when it's snowing.  The reflected light in combination with the snow blindness makes things look pink (like when you are on the last run of a day of skiing and its getting dark).  I think a snowy level would look great with that lighting and those particles (assuming they drifted downwards).

I really appreciate the technical discussion/details.  And I appreciate the images that accompany it even more! It's very cool.  I know I already asked about the lighting but I would love to see an in-editor view of your lighting setup (I'm still confused about the block lights--I haven't spotted any shadows they cast). It would also be cool to look at your parallax script (do you have a formula for movement speed that is based on a z-axis offset?).

The light cubes will eventually cast shadows, right now there is none because of a limitation in unity in deferred lighting and orthographic cameras which I didn't really tried to work around yet. The parallax script is pretty simple, it just reverse the position of the player with a divider that is different for each layers. I change the divider value in X and Y separately manually right now because the perfect value don't always feel right, so I exaggerate or tone it down at will.

[oahda]

I love platformer puzzles. I love light effects. I love this. What I do hate is the lack of a download link!

I really like how you're doing this from a technical point of view, what with the voxelised pixels and a 3D setup in Unity. While I too would love to see cool uses of the potential that comes with this underlying 3D, it seems you're already using effects of it cleverly; I love how the only cue given as to when blocks are poking out of a wall or not – and thereby possible to jump on – is their shadows.

Let us play!

[Paul]

I don't even know if it's interesting to anyone, It's probably basic stuff for the 2D people in here tho, but since its a devlog, I don't know, I feel like I should actually explain the stuff I do and how I do it?

More of these kinds of posts please! I find them interesting and even if you think its a basic or simple solution, someone else might be learning something new from it 

[Krux]

The art style reminds me of Fez. But I really like the fireflies and the foreground layer. But to make it correct you also need to make the stars blurry. But I am not shure if I would like that

[slhomme]

Love the art direction and animation, super well executed, and the use of light/shadow/glow...just amazing

Keep it up.

[Eldan_Knight]

So cute! I love the pixel art :D