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[Pehesse]

Here's some screenshotsaturday progress!



The health system is now correctly tied to player health, and I'm starting to put a few test enemies in to attempt some patterns and placeholder graphics.

The first is of course the medusa-head like enemy, as a nod to the main inspiration behind the game, though it should prove a lot less annoying than for the Belmonts as Inti is more mobile and has a wider range of attack possibilities. THe second one is more in line with one I'll be trying to do: this wallrider is harmful on contact, but if you hit it, it changes into a foothold, allowing you to scale walls more efficiently as the Warrior.

I'm also working on the base of the "pet" system, wherein the monsters you defeat aren't killed, but simply revert back to their unpossessed animal forms, and some of them will stick around for you to play around with a bit. Hopefully more to show on that front soon-ish!

[Pehesse]

New week, new enemies!

I've been mostly trying to draft the main behavior and movement patterns I have currently planned for enemies. Most of them will be recombination of these, so as long as they work at a base level, I'm fairly confident the recombinations should as well - barring some unexpected edge cases, as always :-D

For now, I've added four more enemies, some of them showcased here:








In no particular order, they're the Panther (a simple chaser+attack enemy that will attempt to close in on the player, jumping over small legdes), the Guard Bear (an immobile enemy that will attack if you get too close, and get be used as a platform is you break its guard), the Sconce (a trap enemy that waits for you to release a projectile, then escapes) and the ground Armadillo (a mobile enemy that simply moves around without care for your position, and shoots projectiles at a regular interval).

All of these enemies, once defeated, revert back to their regular animal form, and stick around in the background for the player to pet them if they so choose. That means there is a dedicated pet button, yes :-D

I'm currently focusing on animal enemies, based on the Peruvian ecosystem and Incan mythology, but there will also be other types (architectural, vegetal, and directly the Moon Spirit itself). Lots of animation work ahead... again :-D

[KeinZantezuken]

Here's some screenshotsaturday progress!

Dunno, it could be just me, but for a such big character that takes up so much space on the screen the level design seems inappropriate, inconsistent. She looks like like a bull in a china shop. Have you tried to pan out the camera setup a bit and go for a bit more spacious level design to see how it looks?

[Pehesse]

Here's some screenshotsaturday progress!

Dunno, it could be just me, but for a such big character that takes up so much space on the screen the level design seems inappropriate, inconsistent. She looks like like a bull in a china shop. Have you tried to pan out the camera setup a bit and go for a bit more spacious level design to see how it looks?

Thanks for your thoughts! I hear you, and this has been brought up a number of times in reference to this particular gif. However, it, and many others in the thread, are slightly cropped to reduce filesize (mostly in width, and a little in height) - the actual viewport in play is this:





The game is an action platformer where each of the character's two forms emphathize one or the other. The Acrobat is the form with a focus on platforming, with a larger viewport(and a dedicated platforming moveset). The Warrior, showcased in the gif you quoted, is about battling opponents with some light traversal options, and the camera is more zoomed in to reflect that focus. Both characters can manipulate the camera to some extent as part of their default moveset, and the player is encouraged to use this as a choice between carefully planning their route ahead at the cost of speed, or rushing headlong into danger.

The current camera zoom level is the result of all playtesting and tester feedback so far, and I'm pretty confident it serves its intended purpose in the game, but as with everything else in the game currently, it's ongoing development and subject to change if necessary.

Level design is absolutely not final and not representative of actual level design, it's simply a building test environment that I block out as I create new objects and behaviors to test them out - the plan is indeed to make it more spacious in the end. There currently isn't a single "intended playable" level in the game yet, which is why the progress bar is still at 0% - I'm still very much building the overall "engine" for the game, before tackling the game proper :-D

If you haven't already, I recommend you read through the devlog to have a better view/context of the game, it'll hopefully adress some of your concerns. If it doesn't, though, as I said - it's all a WIP, and I'll change things as needed :-D

[Pehesse]

This week I've been working from a lot of feedback from testers of the Patreon prototype, to resolve as many issues as possible before the end of next week, where I'll present the prototype at a local expo (start the cold shivers now).

The changelog is way too long to go over in its entirety, but two highlights are the projectile interactions:



...where it's now possible to rebound off projectiles, and strike projectiles to send back to an enemy to inflict damage. Player attacks will always resend the projectile in a set angle, so it's possible to have some degree of control over where exactly to send the projectile to!

Another change is about the slopes: after some extensive testing, Mad Spy determined it was likely an issue stemming from Construct 2 itself (a collision detection issue when going from a flat solid to an angled surface that are two different objects), causing a small vibration on transition between the two - normally almost imperceptible, but here the effect was amplified due to the landing animations. Here were how slopes were assembled previously, and how they're built now:



The main difference being the new slopes now contain part of the ground they're connecting to as part of their object, with two origin points (one for the bottom ledge, one for the upper one). Initial testing suggests the infinite rebound problem is gone, though we're still looking very closely into the matter!

Lastly, there are a number of mechanical changes, such as shortcuts to combo moves from the switch transformation for the Warrior - still looking into ways to make the control feel as fluid and powerful as possible, and exploring a number of options to that end. I'll need to go back to drawing new animation for Inti soon at this rate! :-D

[Superb Joe]

not to tell you what to do but if possible you should look at making the large plume of hair behind your character a separate sprite and determining its up and down movement by the number of pixels travelled on the y axis because when you do tiny little jumps and suddenly the massive wave of hair shoots above you because its part of the "falling" sprite it looks weird

[Pehesse]

not to tell you what to do but if possible you should look at making the large plume of hair behind your character a separate sprite and determining its up and down movement by the number of pixels travelled on the y axis because when you do tiny little jumps and suddenly the massive wave of hair shoots above you because its part of the "falling" sprite it looks weird

No worries, I very much appreciate the feedback, thanks a lot! (in fact, most of the changes in the latest 0.028 build were thanks to the feedback of one dedicated tester :-D).

Regarding the hair, I see what you mean, and I'm taking a note of it, but I'm honestly not sure how practical it'll be to change, even at this early stage - it'd require editing/slicing all current 800 frames for the warrior  (and ideally for the acrobat too, for consistency) and rework the hair into something entirely different animated through math, an animation effect I'm usually not a fan of, and something I'm not sure would be better performance wise (I honestly don't know - is reading a single "big" sequence of images better or worse than having a new object pinned to said sequence, recalculated every frame to be placed at the right point, and having dynamic motion based on the current motion?).

I'll keep that on the "to review list", but I fear that may be a visual inconsistency we have to live with due to the animation style. Something I can try, however, is to find how to smooth the "hair going up" motion through different transition frames (either rework the current ones or add new ones), maybe that'll do the trick? Either way, on the to-do list it goes!

[Pehesse]

Phew!

Yesterday was Pacha's first public outing - a nerve wracking experience if ever there was one, but it ended up being a good time. Here's a full recap with pictures!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/15551368

[Pehesse]

Since the festival (and after a little breather), I've been working on adressing some of the feedback received, most notably regarding the special effects layer, that serves as an additional feedback source.




As always, it's all still WIP, as I'm mostly testing the systems and benchmarking their performance impact for now.
Smoke effects allow for clearer legibility of contact of player on the ground and what action is done, especially for jumping/wall climbing, hit effects allow for clearer feedback of whether a hit has an effect or not, flame trails allow for a clearer perception of the flame disk's movement.

I've also started working on a thematic effect for enemies, the moon spirit wisp - in theory, every enemy will have this "smokey" effect that identifies it as hostile, allowing for immediate recognition. When hit, some of the wisps fly off, allowing for another layer of feedback on remaining enemy health, as their wisp grows visibly thinner, until it is completely gone when the enemy is freed. The effect itself is still very much placeholder, as I'm using C2's particle effects for now, but I'm going to try making a custom particle emitter to allow for greater flexibility on what happens during the particles lifetime (rotation, color, and most notably, animated particles).




You'll also see in the gif an example of the expanded camera possibilities: it can now be anchored to a point, allowing for single arenas, or tied to an axis with smooth transition to and from, through the use of event triggers (one to lock the camera to an axis when entering a zone, and one to restore normal tracking when exiting, as pictured here from the layout editor).



Meanwhile, some of the mechanics have also been tweaked: there's now a minimal height gain on jump press, to make for better looking minimal jump arcs and a less awkward "mini combo" if jump is pressed in rapid succession, and also at long last a jump buffer and coyote jump system, allowing for more responsive platforming control overall.



That's about it for now - the todo list is still very long, and the bug list grows increasingly larger with each passing week, so we're still far from done, but it's coming along :-D

[Pehesse]

This week, I've started on the remaining big mechanics on the todo list, to finally have an overview of most things that'll be possible in the game, what works, what doesn't, what needs adding/removing. First item on the list is fire!




The main idea was to have spreading fire through juxtaposing oily surfaces, so player can easily tell what can be lit on fire (and more importantly, what can't). The goal is to allow fire-able surfaces to become both traps and potential benefits depending on the environment and how they're laid out. To that end, the way the fire spreads and how it's displayed is very deterministic with fixed timers, the point isn't to give a naturalistic fire spread feeling but to give player visual control over what's going to happen through experience.

To mix things up, I've added oily projectils that enemies can throw that can create additional puddles, and fiery projectiles than can light puddles on fire. Meanwhile, the player can light puddles too through attacks of their own (that's something only the Warrior can do, as only some of her attacks have fire properties), so it's possible to lure enemies in oily traps before setting it all ablaze!

The whole thing is very simple, maybe overly so - more extensive playtesting and actual level design will show if the system needs refining, and where, but for now it appears to work as intended, so next week I'll focus on yet another mechanic - hopefully, possibly the last?

[Pehesse]

Last update of the year, with a small video recap of what's happened lately! If you've been following closely, you've seen most of it already, except the new hanging ropes, but hopefully it (and the commentary) will still be of interest.

That's it for me this year, let's hope 2018 is a great one for Pacha (and everyone else!)

[io3 creations]

Haven't commented in a while but it's great pleasure to watch the animations.  Given the amount of animations you've done, it'd be very easy to turn it into an animated movie or series.

I have some issues with the sfx though.
1) When there are a lot of attacks, the large amount of sfx in a short amount of time doesn't sound "realistic" i.e. I haven't seen a fight scene where a person released so many attack sounds.  Or it might be related to issue #2.
2) There seems to be a "pitch difference" between certain attack sounds.  Some are high, others are quite low.  I guess, it is possible that a person would sound like that, but it still sounds a bit strange.
3) I know certain things will be refined, but compared to other games, I might (at least sometimes) prefer a "voiceless" version - i.e. only environmental sfx.  So having that as a toggleable option would be great.  Or perhaps not completely silent, so an even better option would be to, much like music and sfx, adjust volume with a slider.

[Pehesse]

Haven't commented in a while but it's great pleasure to watch the animations.  Given the amount of animations you've done, it'd be very easy to turn it into an animated movie or series.

I have some issues with the sfx though.
1) When there are a lot of attacks, the large amount of sfx in a short amount of time doesn't sound "realistic" i.e. I haven't seen a fight scene where a person released so many attack sounds.  Or it might be related to issue #2.
2) There seems to be a "pitch difference" between certain attack sounds.  Some are high, others are quite low.  I guess, it is possible that a person would sound like that, but it still sounds a bit strange.
3) I know certain things will be refined, but compared to other games, I might (at least sometimes) prefer a "voiceless" version - i.e. only environmental sfx.  So having that as a toggleable option would be great.  Or perhaps not completely silent, so an even better option would be to, much like music and sfx, adjust volume with a slider.

Hey, welcome back :-D

Regarding your comments, I basically agree with everything! I haven't worked lots on sfx at all at this stage, I'll confess - most are placeholder and simply there to test different textures in situation. I'm waiting to have actual "intended finished" sfx to work on their balance/amount, as there's a lot of stuff to fix right now, especially related to your 1 and 2 concerns.
For the pitch difference, I attempted that as a way to create audio variance with a single soundclip, but the effect likely needs a lot more tweaking (and more base soundclips as well :-D) - I'll review how it all works either way.
For the voice, yeah, there definitely will be sliders for everything audio related: individual sliders for music, sounds and voice, with options to disable any of the three separately from the other. I also need to tweak the exact amount of voice used, and how the clips play after each other, as my current cut method isn't satisfactory.

So overall: yeah, sound needs a LOT of work, and I'm keeping your notes as reference :-D Thanks a lot!

[io3 creations]

Hey, welcome back :-D

[ ... snip ... ]

So overall: yeah, sound needs a LOT of work, and I'm keeping your notes as reference :-D Thanks a lot!

Thanks and you're welcome!

This kind of sfx implementation is also on my To Do list for one of my games (after finishing a few other games before that), so I'll be curious how your implementation will work.

[Pehesse]

I'm finally back in action, after a small illness!

Only small-scale changes for now, to restart the year on proper footing:




I've reworked the moon spirit possession effect to have a more cohesive look with the overall aesthetic. It still needs a lot of work, but I'm getting closer to the original intended effect. It's now a custom particle emitter, allowing mainly for animated particle emission, along with a few other functions (rotation on emission, for instance).
Among other changes, I've tied the systems from before the break together: ropes now burn (well, cut for now) ropes, and falling blocks interact with breakable floors on their way down.
Also changed: I've tweaked how wall jumping works, though that's something testers will need to get a feel for, not something I can showcase on gifs.

The objective for the coming weeks will be to sketch some new animation, both for the enemies and for Inti's remaining moves!

[Pehesse]

Time for a new gif-shower to show the newly sketched enemy animations!







For now I've sketched the guard bear and the armadillo, I still need to sketch the panther and wall armadillo to have a "base" roundup of enemies for demo purposes, before moving on to sketch new Inti anims, and then cleaning/coloring all of that. So look forward to more of this in the coming weeks!

[Pehesse]

This week wasn't the best productivity wise, but I still managed to sketch the next enemy's animations:



I still have to rework a bit their anatomy during cleanup, but that's mostly a structure problem - at least, the motion is there, so that's probably the hardest part over. For now I'll move on to sketching some of Inti's new moves.

[Pehesse]

This week was all about new Inti moves, so here are some sketches - you know the drill about what's next: test integration, then cleanup, color, actual integration, testing.. and we'll see if there's a need for round 3 :-D

[Pehesse]

Another week, another sketch recap! Only three more anims to go for the Warrior, and I'll start stuffing them all in the game, and try to get it to work. Fun times ahead!

[Pehesse]

The new moves and transition animations for the Acrobat are in!



The coyote animation only fires off when you have travelled a set distance horizontally, so it's not everytime you make a fall. It's just cosmetic for now, I'm trying to make it so it allows a small timing window expansion to perform the coyote jump as an actual bonus.



The Air Blade move is now also a small vertical gain move, as the Acrobat didn't have one and I felt this expands her mobility options. She can only use the blade once per jump, so a little strategy is required to pull off the best manoeuvers with it.



Fallthrough now plays a dedicated animation, giving the move a little more weight. It makes it slightly slower than before, but not actually that much, and the transition works much better visually (even in giving feedback that the player's button press has been registered), so I see it as a very positive change despite the slightly slower execution.



The backdash is a pure evasion move. It blocks off all other abilities, has little mobility (so no infinite super fast dashing using it a la Symphony of the Night), but slows time during it just enough that you avoid the current attack and recover in time to react to the next.



Taking damage in low ceiling areas now play the proper animation, which gives much better feedback and coherency overall.




The pet system has been entirely remade to work from both directions, and move the animal's animation rather than Inti's logic box, to avoid displacement issues (in general, it's a pretty bad idea to move that box unnecessarily :-D). It also now correctly registers vertical differentials, making it so you need to be on the same plane as an animal to pet them - no more scratching empty air!



The Wall Flatten replaces the previous "hand on wall" idle which had no practical purpose. Now, it's possible to avoid incoming fallblocks, making for some nice "close call" scenarios! The old hand on wall is still accessible through an additional button, too, so nothing is lost if you just want flavor :-D



This is an example of the new "SlideSwitch" occurring when the player switches during a slide, that allows for a pretty cool range of mobility options. Since it ends up in a Warrior powerslide, you can immediately chain it with a rising strike, followed by whatever you need... I think this has some speedrunning potential :-D



Lastly for this showcase, basic movement now has a "turn around" animation for better transition. Surprisingly, it's not even slower than before, since deceleration values made it that previous movement did have a pause when turning around before gaining back momentum - it just didn't have any specific visual feedback, so this animation makes the whole thing feel more weighty and better (all subjective, of course, and I'll need player feedback on that one to confirm, but so far, this plays much closer to what I'd hoped and "feels" better to control).

As you can see from the compilation gifs from previous weeks, some anims aren't showcased here, but they're all in and work for their intended purpose, so that's a pretty great milestone! The next objective is to do the same for the Warrior. Once that's done, it'll be time for testers to put that expanded moveset to the test! :-D