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[Ishi]

Oh, I knew I hadn't posted in a while but didn't realise it was over a month already!

The diversity of items, characters and events in the game really gets impressive. I'm curious to know how you're coding all this. Is it a click-and-play like game maker ? scripting for a closed-source game engine ? native code even for game events ?

Thanks! The game is all in C++. Basically all of the gameplay entities (player, objects and enemies) derive from a single Entity class, so they all share a lot of their behaviour. The different enemies also derive from a more specialised Enemy class, which has behaviour for walking around and things like that.

Here is a post about how some of the interactions between objects are handled which might be interesting for you.

I have a feature called Sequences which allows me to "script" some very basic cause-and-effect behaviour, see here for more info.

The project is still going!

March hasn't been my most productive month ever. The combination of a short but very busy holiday, plus a lot of distraction in the form of the Switch and Mario Run, has kept me pretty busy and it's been hard to pick the momentum back up. But I've not been totally idle and have got some bits of work done here and there.

The plan for March to be focused on character animations and development totally fell through; instead I just tried to get more gameplay features in that I didn't finish in the previous month.

A good example is these fireballs. They can be triggered by sequences (as seen in the gif here), or they can be on a fixed pattern, or they can spawn randomly out of the lava. So in the lava levels this will be a great way to put pressure on the player!

[GrumpyGiant]

If you don't want a face on the missile, I'd suggest having a guy riding on the back of it like in Dr Strangelove.

[Ishi]

Some early screenshots of a new level I worked on this weekend. Level design month has begun!

[Tuba]

Nice color palete

[io3 creations]

Good to see the progress!

I agree with an earlier comment that due to the matching color palette, it looks like the rockets are also platforms.


But these images look clearer.

Some early screenshots of a new level I worked on this weekend. Level design month has begun!

[Ishi]

Explosives and Blocks level design

I've "finished" my first level of the month! I've put finished in quotes because it's probably just a first pass in reality. But it is definitely a full playable level.

It's mainly focused on blocks and explosives. I wasn't quite so formal with the level design as I have been in the past - there are no specific sections (like I tried here). Instead I just laid out whatever I felt like putting next, which was refreshing.

Here are some highlights from a playthrough. Big gif ahoy!



Something that I've taken away from playing through Mario Run is that when the game forces you to make lots of small choices, it can be quite engaging. In Mario Run due to the auto-running nature of it you're very often deciding which path to take, or which enemies to bounce on, usually without the option of going back. So in this level I've added various places where if you take one path, it's not possible (or is at least awkward) to go back and take the other path. Also there are choices about how to make use of enemies/objects in the level.

It took me 2 minutes 30 to record the playthrough, I think that feels about right as I rushed through a lot of it, and of course I know what I'm doing already. I don't have any definite number in my head for how long a level should be though, for now I'm going to keep making new levels and just see how long they turn out.

[Louard]

Nothing constructive to add... Just that I can't wait to play this game!

[flix3000]

I just registered, to tell you how awesome your game looks!
Looking forward to see it progress. 

[Ishi]

Rope Cliff level design

Here are highlights from the second new level of the month. It's much more of a straightforward challenge level.



The gif contains a feature I haven't shown before... tube cannons! They make Leilani (or enemies, of course) bounce around smashing blocks until she hits a solid surface. She's able to keep some of the momentum from the cannon, as long as she doesn't stop rolling or run into anything, which is why she's going so fast towards the end of the level here.

Also the background graphics are placeholder at the moment, something a bit less empty will be added.

[bynine]

Rope Cliff level design

Here are highlights from the second new level of the month. It's much more of a straightforward challenge level.



The gif contains a feature I haven't shown before... tube cannons! They make Leilani (or enemies, of course) bounce around smashing blocks until she hits a solid surface. She's able to keep some of the momentum from the cannon, as long as she doesn't stop rolling or run into anything, which is why she's going so fast towards the end of the level here.

Also the background graphics are placeholder at the moment, something a bit less empty will be added.

hey man! been following this dev blog for a while. you're a big inspiration, love how polished and free this game looks.

about this latest gif; leilani's animation & motion for going under a rope looks kind of weird right now. maybe if she grabbed it briefly before flinging herself forward?

[Ishi]

hey man! been following this dev blog for a while. you're a big inspiration, love how polished and free this game looks.

about this latest gif; leilani's animation & motion for going under a rope looks kind of weird right now. maybe if she grabbed it briefly before flinging herself forward?

Hey Agreed that it doesn't look very good at the moment. The way the player drops through the rope is by letting go of the Roll button (Leilani only collides with ropes while rolling). So she's just snapping out of the roll into the normal falling animation. In the gif I'm just letting go of the Roll button very briefly so then she goes back into the crouching again. From the player's point of view these instant animation transitions give instant feedback on what's happening so I'm not too concerned about how it looks - possibly I should just avoid putting it in trailers or something. But it's a valid concern, thanks for raising it!

Rope rendering method

Someone on twitter asked if I had talked about the way the ropes are implemented, and I don't think I did. So I put this image together.



The main trick going on is that the collision for the rope is totally static. Visually the rope is higher up than its collision, so when an object is on the rope, the visual part can deform down to match where the collision is.

The rope knows how many objects are on it, and at what position, so it can deform in as many places as it needs to. Finally to achieve the bouncy effect when an entity stops colliding with the rope, the rope remembers that there was an entity there and continues to deform the rope, but with a vertical sin wave applied to the position.

The ropes are one of the few things in the game drawn with non-square polygons. They are sheared rather than rotated (i.e. the rope is drawn with parallelograms) which prevents the texture (especially the black outline) from getting too distorted.

[foofter]

I know I just retweeted this on Twitter, but just wanted to comment here, too. The rope rendering is impressive and all, but that outside level is just pleasuring me to the max with its crisp bright levels! Even more fun that the lava cave and woods ones, for me.  These are the kinds of graphics that make me want to play a platformer, even though I don't usually... Heck it even makes me wanna try to MAKE a platformer!

[qMopey]

That's a pretty slick rope implementation. Thanks for sharing! 

[Louard]

Every time I check in to your progress I'm inspired/crushed by the level of quality!

[Ishi]

Those are all very nice comments, thank you!

Level design month continues, and I'm on track - 3 levels completed so far!

This week's clip comes to you via Pirate Hearts' SuperCRT filter. I liked how the game looked through the filter. It's not a feature of the game, though maybe it could be a bonus feature if I find time some day.

[Quicksand-T]

I know it's been done a million times but that would be cool to use that effect for a trailer or promo.

[jctwood]

I really love that CRT filter...

[Schoq]

I always imagined it on more of a handheld style LCD but I agree the game looks hecking good like this!

I don't comment much but I always look forward to updates itt. Your game looks great in every department!

[JobLeonard]

Still, someone should make an old-school colour LCD shader too, with all the ghosting and visible RGB sub-pixels and stuff.

[io3 creations]

Having seen the vivid colors and details of your game, I'd prefer to play with those visuals.  But It could be effective for a trailer.  Perhaps with some "before/after" i.e. "past gfx/current gfx" comparison sequences could be interesting to tie in the past nostalgia.

Of course, if there's interest and you have time then it'd be a good addition.