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[cousin_it]

The tutorial text at the very beginning of the game has been giving me trouble. The very first version said:

left to zig
right to zag
space to start

That was cute, but a bit too minimalistic and several people asked for more clear instructions. I changed it:

Press left to go counterclockwise, right to go clockwise, up or space to start.

Then some people said that it would make more sense to talk about turning from the perspective of the line. Next version:

Press left or right to turn (from the perspective of the line), up or space to start.

That was clear enough, but a little stuttery. This morning I had an insight:

Press left or right to steer the line, up or space to start.

That's the version I'm going with now.

[cousin_it]

Four new palettes:



Now I have twelve and I'm happy with all of them. Bumping up the game completion to 40%.

[cousin_it]

Just made this one:

[Beyond]

Damn. I never know which arrow to press

[cousin_it]

Some panicked gameplay with the speedup mechanic:

[cousin_it]

Another blue one:

[cousin_it]

I noticed that the game had a few frames of annoying stutter upon each restart, and it was seriously bugging me. Eventually I had an idea that it might be due to something going "cold", either the canvas or requestAnimationFrame. So I made requestAnimationFrame happen during idle times too, and started drawing a 1x1 rectangle on the canvas every frame. That helped, now the stutter is gone and the game starts silky smooth. Curiously, a 0x0 rectangle didn't work, I guess it doesn't keep the canvas "warm".

[cousin_it]

I've started looking for new songs to add to the game. Requirements: melodic dance music, no vocals, steady 130ish bpm, starts softly and escalates (with bass drops, fillls, key changes and such), the beginning part should be pleasant to listen to over and over, later parts should be fun to anticipate. "Funky Stars" is a good example, another one is "Cheat Codes" by Nitro Fun which I probably can't use due to copyright. Just installed GarageBand, maybe I'll write some music of my own.

[cousin_it]

Writing music for my game turned out to be very hard. I'm slowly figuring out exactly which mood the game needs, but it will probably take a long time. Here's a small tune I wrote this morning that sounds nice but doesn't have the right mood: https://clyp.it/ett0yev3

[cousin_it]

Oops! My last update (4 days ago) introduced a bug. I just fixed it.

[cousin_it]

I made another short music loop: https://clyp.it/mo0yrd4l. When I put it in the game, it feels kinda okay but still not quite right. In the next one I'll try to get rid of the dark parts and keep everything light.

[cousin_it]

Added another new palette today:

[cousin_it]

I noticed that the movement speed begins to feel a little slow after 1 minute. Just uploaded a new version with snappier movement.

[cousin_it]

While experimenting with some new mechanics, I realized that rotation speed and zoom speed create two different kinds of difficulty, and rotation is the more fun one. On the other hand, if rotation speed outpaces zoom speed by too much, the animation becomes a mess. So I've uploaded a new tweak that increases the rotation speed, making the game harder after 1 minute but hopefully more fun.

Also I've uploaded a subtle change to palette transitions. Now the colors interpolate more slowly, except the innermost color which just snaps to the target value. Hopefully that looks a bit more distinctive without being distracting.

[cousin_it]

I've uploaded another update to the game. It adds a new difficulty curve, where the zoom speed and the rotation speed don't always grow in lockstep. I've found that it feels more hypnotic somehow, because the ratio of rotation to zoom speed is fluctuating instead of stable.

Also I've added a subtle glow effect:

[MattEbbs]

Hey just tried your game. Very appropriate topic title: this game thoroughly defeated me lol

[cousin_it]

Yeah, I'm trying to make the perfect game for myself and that means it has to be very hard.

Just uploaded another update that tones down the glow effect and adds some more palette tweaks. The game should look a little less eye-watering now.

[cousin_it]

Just posted this on Newgrounds: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/679178.

[cousin_it]

Here's the new game over screen that took me way too long to design:



The biggest problem was making it feel lightweight, so the loop of play -> fail -> check score -> restart goes as smoothly as possible. Many possible game over screens, including Super Hexagon's, are too jarring and eventually make you ragequit.

Also I've removed the time indicator during gameplay, it feels much better without it. I was a little sad to throw away the beautiful seven-segment display that I spent so much time on, but maybe I'll use it for something else. On the plus side, the game code is below 700 lines again :-)

Also I've added a slowdown mechanic (down arrow). You can slow down as many times as you've sped up. This way you don't have to separate your training runs from your high score runs, and a good training run can lead to a high score.

Also the help text now says simply "Press up to start, left or right to steer the line."

Bumping the game completion up to 50%, yay!

[cousin_it]

I've updated the game over screen again, now it's animated. Still not completely happy with it though.