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[Ghat-Smith]

I will forever approve of grappling hooks.

Ever since my childhood play through of Ocarina of Time, I love games that utilize grappling hooks (or in Zelda's case, the 'hookshot').

Looking forward to it! :D

Then I hope you will enjoy this new DevLog :D.

OTOT - DevLog #3 : A grappling hook in the game

Before talking about the grappling hook that will be present in OTOT, I would just remind you that our game is still in early development. Of course we have a global idea of the game that we want to create, but some precise aspects are still foggy. That's why we are currently working hard on the design of the game. Nevertheless, we think it's interessant to share with you the development progress of the project. You should just be aware that some elements you will see in our DevLogs could be potentially changed in the future (and if it happens, be sure that we will explain why). I think it was important to precise the situation .

So why a grappling hook in OTOT ? As you may have read in the presentation of the game, the mecha is central to the game design. On the first mecha design imaginated by Uubu, the mecha entrance was in the air, and we quickly needed a way to allow the player to easily leave and come back into the mecha. . We thought that the player could instruct the mecha to crouch, but the idea of the grappling hook seemed more funny. It also adds a lot of possibilities for the character movements.

As you can see in the previous DevLog, one of our reference for the grappling hook is Bionic Commando, but I personally wanted something with much more flexibility, something like the ninja rope in Worms for example.

I created a rope using Unity physics and the result was pretty interesting. After modifying the implementation one or two times before, I ended with a relatively simple and efficient code (as a programmer, I still need to progress in terms of code refactoring).

Also, I encountered some difficulties with the physics collisions. I tinkered a lot the Unity physics settings because the rope sometimes passed through obstacles :x.

Sorry for the bad gif quality, I had not planned to show it at the time. However, you can already see the interesting physics of the rope. I added the ability to rewind and unwind the rope when the grappling hook is attached.

Let's finish this DevLog by showing you our actual result :

You can notice that the player can control the grappling hook direction.

There are some indications specific for the gif : green circle is for right mouse click (launch grapnel / rewind) and the black circle is for left click (unwind). I use the mouse wheel or jump to release the rope.

I think it’s a good place to say that all controls in OTOT are also thought to be compatible with controllers (I use the conventional Xbox 360 controller for my tests).

One last thing I can add is about the visual appearance of the rope. It’s just a not very suitable placeholder sprite for the moment. It will be changed.

I have more things to show about the grappling hook but it will be for future posts. I hope you enjoy this first overview. Do you already imagine your little character using his grappling hook to climb on huge mechas :D ?

[TonyManfredonia]

Yesss!!!

It looks so much fun! Very much like a spider man grappling hook . Swinging around and whatnot.

I look forward to trying it out ^^

[digitallava]

I so badly want to be able to highjack an enemy's mech in this. The fact that they actually have interiors brings a whole other level of gameplay after successfully climbing and entering an enemy's mech.

Absolutely love this shit

[Oats]

This looks really cool, following!

[oldblood]

Chiming in to say I agree with everyone else, looks awesome! Great attention to detail in your devlogs.

[io3 creations]

Looks good.  The pixel style with the military theme and machines reminded of Metal Slug somewhat but your game definitely has it's own style.



Perhaps Unity Physics "assumed" that since you fired in the air and the grappling hood didn't attach to anything, you did want to use it.


Oh, does OTOT mean something?  Is it the military term On Target On Time  or perhaps On Top Of This/That/These/Those/  I also noticed it's part of prototype.

[crusty]

this is very cool

[Ghat-Smith]

Thanks everybody for the positive feedbacks, it really motivates us.

It looks so much fun! Very much like a spider man grappling hook . Swinging around and whatnot.

You got it ! It was one of my reference, really ! A future DevLog will detail how the grapnel shots can be chained to move smoothly like Spider-Man :p.

I so badly want to be able to highjack an enemy's mech in this.

We want too ! But we still need to clarify this aspect in our game design.

Perhaps Unity Physics "assumed" that since you fired in the air and the grappling hood didn't attach to anything, you did want to use it.

I love Unity, but it can't have so much complex assumptions :p.
The rope velocity coupled to the small size of colliders make them pass through other colliders. The physical engine didn't have time to catch and resolve the collision that the object was already passed throught the obstacle. To keep it simple, I just increase the frequency of the physics calculations, which unfortunately has cost in terms of performances. I also planned a DevLog to talk about grappling hook performances (yes we have already planned some DevLogs).

Oh, does OTOT mean something?  Is it the military term On Target On Time  or perhaps On Top Of This/That/These/Those/  I also noticed it's part of prototype.

I can't answer to this question for the moment :x.

[io3 creations]

Ooh, a secret (for now)!  At least it sounds like it does have a meaning.

Another thing came to mind from the movie 'Cats and Dogs'

Lou: I think that if I'm going to be a secret agent, I should have a better name. I was thinking, "Toto Annihilation"

which when pronounced sounds like "Total Annihilation".  That would be a bit stretching it but given the theme of your game it might still fit.

Looking forward to the grappling hook devlog.

[Romain Rope]

Managing all the tasks in coop to control the mecha remind me a lot "Love In A Dangerous Spacetime" (and it works very well actually).

And obviously this is gonna be even better with grappling hooks

[SolarLune]

Huh, this sounds like an interesting idea for a game. I like the graphical style, too - kind of "simple but weird" (in a good way).

[zminusone]

Dope rope 

Seriously though, this looks awesome... love sci-fi... love mecha stuff...

[Ghat-Smith]

Hi guys! It's been a very long time .

To make it short, we faced some difficulties concerning the game design. We unfortunately put the communication aspect aside to be focused on the game design. We still have some problems to resolve but I would be able to give some more explanations and details soon.

A big thanks for your positive feedbacks and encouragements. It really helps!
Again, sorry for the lack of communication these past weeks.

[mzn528]

NOIIICEEEE

[crusty]

Awesome!  Can't wait to see more.  Don't overreach early!

[Ghat-Smith]

Hi everyone.

It’s been a long time since we have given some news of our project OTOT. The last few months of work have been particularly difficult and painful. We met problems about design which put upside down a lot of things we had in our head for the game. Uubu and me started to have a different vision for the game and we didn’t success to find true solutions to our problems. All of this has highly affected the progress of the project and our motivation.

We estimate that the results we get after many months of work are not up to the efforts nor to our expectations. Consequently, we decided to stop the project. This is a mutual decision, Uubu and me are staying on good terms. Him, like me, are still attached to this project, and convinced by its potential in some way.

To give some more explanations, here are the most important errors we think have been made :

• Scattering : implementing a grapnel, procedural animations, procedural generation and procedural animations, level editor, pathfinding, AI, … We spent a lot of time on elements that were not necessarily a priority, or at least which weren’t constituting the heart of the project.  In the contrary, we should have focus on the gameplay features by putting in place a gameplay loop robust and fun.
• Ambition : probably something often seen in post mortems, but create a game is a really difficult task, and needs much more time than expected. I think we didn’t really realize that in the beginning. It’s also important to remember that we weren’t working at full time on the project, not at all. On my side, I’m part time student in a computer science school, and part time employee in a development studio, it was difficult to find free time for a third work.
• Game design : Uubu and me aren’t game designers and I think we learnt a lot with this project. We had a lot of discussion about the game design, but unfortunately we have been slow to see inconsistencies or incompatibilities between different aspects. The most critical point was the visibility : displaying giant mechas on the screen when the player controls a small character is not easy, especially in pixel art.
• Programmation : from the beginning of the project and today, I feel that I have learned a lot in video game development. Many times, I decided to review and rewrite my code to improve its quality. I think that the code’s quality is a key of success in video game development, because it’s important to keep a clean code over time. Clean and well structured code guarantee the efficiency in the development, even when the project becomes more and more complex.
• Communication : I think it was a good idea to begin to talk about the project on some forums, but we failed to do it correctly and especially regularly. We tried to anticipate the problem by writing a few dozen articles in advance, unfortunately, the way the project turned meant that many things were no longer relevant.

Finally, maybe we could consider OTOT as a research and development project. We learnt a lot, on different aspects, and I’m still convinced that failures are the best way to learn. Even if it’s a bit difficult to accept at the moment, this experience will be, for sure, beneficial on the long term.

On my side, I would like to focus on another project that slept in my head for a few years. Obviously, with all that has been said above, the strategy has changed. I want to focus on the gameplay and realize a prototype alone. When I will have a robust and interesting prototype, I will begin to communicate publicly and collaborate with other people (graphist in particular).

We sincerely thank you for the positives feedbacks you have given us, and we are really sorry that we can’t carry this project to its conclusion. I hope that you will understand our choice, and maybe one day OTOT will reborn, who knows.

[io3 creations]

That's unfortunate but understandable.
Irkalla was on a hiatus for long time, then restarted ... so anything is possible!

[Ghat-Smith]

Thank you.
Yeah I was really happy when Irkalla restarted, it looks so amazing .

[io3 creations]

Oh, does this mean that you can answer my question regarding the title ... or not yet.