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[Ishi]

Hey all,

Sorry I haven't shown anything in the last week! I've been working on fixing various bugs and polishing existing mechanics. For example, missile projectiles can now travel through tubes, which also means missiles can travel vertically (if they exit a tube that's pointing up/down). Objects colliding in tubes is now handled better, if you're rolling through a tube and a missile is travelling the other way then the missile will explode and damage you correctly. Blocks can be placed over the end of the tube and you'll damage the block when you try to exit the tube, and then rebound and return through the tube - previously you would exit the tube inside the block and get instantly crushed.

So it's nice to be making some progress again! I wanted to talk about my plan for how to split up work on the game. I've had troubles with focusing on certain elements of the game - level design particularly I struggle to sit down and work on! So I'm going to try splitting various tasks up month-by-month to allow me to focus on one thing at a time.

• November - Mechanics month: Bugfixing, polishing old mechanics, adding new mechanics.
• December - Level design month: no code, create as much playable content as possible.
• January - Audio month: Adding as many sound effects as possible, even if they're placeholder. Improving audio code.
• ? - Technical month: Fixing some graphics issues, improving my build tools for packing sprites etc.
• ? - Mechanics month 2
• ? - Level design month 2
• ? - ?

As you can see it's hardly comprehensive but I don't see much point in strict planning too far ahead. I've never tried organising my tasks like this, but I've never worked solo on a game this big either. So I will see whether this helps me to make quicker progress.

[and]

Don't forget playtesting month! I took a bunch of what I thought were 'tutorial' levels to a local gamedev meetup (just levels designed to help you get a grip of, and have fun with, the way Mable controls), and it was horrible. But it was also amazing because I realised all the things that I need to do to make the game actually playable for people who have never played it before (i.e. most of the world).

Seriously, playtesting is super useful. Particularly if you can stand there and watch people play it who have never ever played it.

[Louard]

Seriously, playtesting is super useful. Particularly if you can stand there and watch people play it who have never ever played it.

This can't be stressed enough. Over my career, the lesson that never seems to sink in is that no one on the team has any idea how hard the game is! For Suzy Cube, I hooked up Everyplay so testers can upload gameplay clips. Invaluable!

[Ishi]

Seriously, playtesting is super useful. Particularly if you can stand there and watch people play it who have never ever played it.

This can't be stressed enough. Over my career, the lesson that never seems to sink in is that no one on the team has any idea how hard the game is! For Suzy Cube, I hooked up Everyplay so testers can upload gameplay clips. Invaluable!

That's good advice, thanks! I'm definitely planning on being more active about getting people to try the game once I've churned out a load of playable stuff. At the moment I have a couple of solid playable levels, which I've tested quite a bit, but there's so much that needs fixing in there that it doesn't feel worth getting more people to try it yet. I think I'm going to a show-and-tell kind of meetup in Cambridge in early December to show the game off, so will get a level or two together for that.

Mechanics month - new toys

I've continued mechanics month by adding a couple of new toys for me to play with.

Flower Platform

I've had a big spinning flower platform in the game for a long time. Back in August 2015(!) I talked about how I'd like to improve it. I finally got around to doing so!



It's bigger, more colourful, and more useful. Hooray! After a short amount of time it'll close and fall back down to the ground, so there's a timing element involved. I didn't show that in the gif because I didn't so the closing animation yet...

Powered doors

The mechanical base entrance introduces using batteries to supply power to things. I now have a gameplay object that makes use of this.



The graphics for everything here is very early. It's functional. I'll do a proper art pass of the base interior sometime in the future.

[Tuba]

May ask how are you designing these mechanics?

Do you think of cool things to interact with and then build a level around it or the opposite way?

[Basil]

Yes, more progress!

[Ishi]

May ask how are you designing these mechanics?

Do you think of cool things to interact with and then build a level around it or the opposite way?

I think of the mechanics before level design, sometimes I will have some ideas for little snippets of gameplay that I could create with a new feature, but nothing major. Although if I have a visual theme for a level in mind then that can inspire the mechanic.

In the case of the battery-powered objects it was inspired directly by Kirby Planet Robobot, which had similar battery powered machines. In Kirby's case they're simple lock-and-key mechanisms - e.g. the battery powers a saw which cuts through a barrier. I tend to design things to be a bit more flexible, so the powered doors that I showed this week are actually moving platforms, so they could have multiple uses.

[PirateFish]

Love the progress. Can't get enough of her spinning around.

[Retroopla]

Hey there! The setting and some enemies reminded me a lot of Wario Land! (which I love).
I'm pretty sure that your game will bring back the good old times with this kind of gameplay!
Keep it up

[Ishi]

Aloha! Thanks PirateFish and Retroopla

Boomerang enemy

I wanted to add a new enemy this week, so here's a rundown of the flow I have gone through to design and implement it.

The game needs more threatening things to fill the levels with. So the idea for the enemy was:

- It's classed as a big enemy. Big enemies won't be damageable by small Leilani, in the same way that she can't break big blocks. I don't really have any big enemies in the game at the moment.
- Mostly spiky, you can only attack during a specific window. You can't just rush in.
- Dangerous projectile
- It's a robot
- You can't cause it to roll, you just destroy it.
- The behaviour of the enemy will be more complex than others I currently have. But since the aim is to simply destroy it, the long term interactions with the enemy are a little more limited (it's more of a challenge than a tool that Leilani can use to her advantage).

I decided to do a boomerang-throwing enemy that patrols a platform and throws a boomerang at Leilani when it sees her. Leilani gets the chance to attack after the enemy has thrown the boomerang, so to defeat the enemy you need to put yourself in danger first.

I started with a placeholder sprite. Quite often I do some nice artwork first, but I wanted to get a feel for how the enemy would play first. It only took an evening to get a first pass version of the enemy in (as the game progresses it's definitely getting quicker to add new features, which is good!). When Leilani gets close the enemy starts tracking her, trying to maintain a certain distance.



Next I was able to get the projectile's boomerang behaviour working. Notice that the boomerang starts on a high trajectory - this allows Leilani to roll or crouch underneath it, rather than having to jump over it. I'm considering having two possible paths for the boomerang, either high->low or low->high, and some sort of condition would determine how the enemy throws it. Not sure yet.

Since the projectile code was borrowed from some old exploding cannonball projectiles, it had the unintended effect in this gif of the projectile exploding and destroying the enemy. People on twitter liked this effect, but for me it doesn't fit because:

- The enemy is supposed to catch the projectile
- I like to follow "form fits function". Objects that can be conceivably thrown like a boomerang don't look like they should explode.



Today I fixed it so the enemy catches the boomerang correctly. I also fixed some other little things, such as the enemy not walking off ledges when tracking Leilani.



Finally I started experimenting with some final artwork for the sprite. The placeholder sprite wasn't quite big enough for a "big" enemy, so I've gone a bit larger.



The gorilla-style one doesn't really work, as he's relying so much on his arms to stand up that he can't really throw things. I quite like the koopa-esque one on the right, though it's a bit too high-detail for the style of the game I think. When I continue work on the sprites I will probably simplify it a little first.

[Ishi]

Did another pass on the boomerang guy:

[Spennerino]

Did another pass on the boomerang guy:

The new one is definitely the best but i miss the X mark from the first one. It really nicely hinted at how to defeat the enemy. Looks like a weak spot.

[Zorg]

I liked the yaw wrench. The last one looks cool. Maybe you could use a darker color for the diamond shape on his chest?

Edit: Keep the gorilla guy in mind for a later enemy design. He could be bowling with cogs, for example.

[Ishi]

I liked the yaw wrench. The last one looks cool. Maybe you could use a darker color for the diamond shape on his chest?

I like the spanner/wrench too I'd like to use that for a bouncing projectile rather than a boomerang-style one, though. Sticking to the "form fits function" motto, I can imagine a wrench spinning and bouncing along dangerously. The curved blade thing I've given him is a bit more feasible as a boomerang. I also see it as a tool the robots could use to cut down foliage and grass which makes it fit into the world a bit.

[Ishi]

I've spent a bit too much time on Pokémon Moon this week, although since it's also Hawaii inspired, let's call it research

I managed to make a bit of progress towards mechanics month still.

Toggle Blocks

A first pass at the idea of a toggle switch block which turns blocks on and off, to use in the mechanical base levels.



Powerup Pickups

I made some effort to finalise the appearance and behaviour of the pickups that give Leilani her powers. The fire feather is now a Fire Leaf, and the way that it moves as it falls is a now a bit quicker and more consistent.

The bubble powerup (which has never actually been accessible in the game until now) is now a Bubble Berry. The pickup looks kinda bland at the moment but I like the behaviour of it floating through the air. Fun fact, if the powerup floats into some spikes the bubble will get popped, and the berry falls to the floor

[Tuba]

Are the green items computer chips?

Looking lovely as always

[Basil]

The toggle blocks will be very interesting! Maybe the final animation could have them quickly slide in and out of the background so they look closer and further away. I dunno.

[Ishi]

Are the green items computer chips?

Yeah, there'll be three to collect per level. They'll be used to do something (e.g. unlock mechanical gates on the world map).

Today marks the end of my gameplay mechanics month! It's been pretty productive. Today I added some polish to existing features. The flower platforms now have a 'death' animation, and can also be placed in mid-air, not just on the floor. For the bubble powerup I added a new animation for Leilani when she's floating in the bubble, and also made it so she will bounce of walls when in the bubble. I quite like the bouncing although it remains to be seen whether it gets in the way of other gameplay too much and becomes annoying.

   

[Zorg]

Loving the new arm pose for the bubble. 

[jctwood]

I agree that floating pose is so lovely! Really amazing to see this still in development. I'm sure you have explained your process in the past and I missed it but how do you tend to choose the palette for new costumes etc.? I love the contrast of enemies (yellow/purple to leilani and her environment green/brown)