next »

[SleepyPanda]

Ho man... this looks great! Love the colour palette, the simplicity of the universe and all the cool physics effect! 

[Nordanvinden]

#Update 116 - Secrets

yesterday I started trying to implement the secrets. There is supposed to be one secret on each level. I have a few issues with them though.

- I dont know, story wise and technically, WHY the player is collecting them other than that its fun finding secrets.
- I need to make sure that the player dont think it will affects their abilities in any way, like the energy cubes, and gets that its a secret.

Other than that I want to change the color of the level on the world map to let the player know they have collected the secret.

Any suggestions regarding these issues are very welcome 


Current prototype of secret.

[Nordanvinden]

Ho man... this looks great! Love the colour palette, the simplicity of the universe and all the cool physics effect! 

Hey, Thanks! Thats very kind of you. I am glad that you like so many aspects of the game 

[foofter]

Ooh, I like the secret!  Looks appropriately mysterious.

[Nordanvinden]

#Update 117 - Main menu

So I decided to remove the main menu that normally shows up in games when you start them and went for a more "The Witness" kind of feeling where the game just starts instantly where you last were.

I did this to get the player started faster and have less friction in general. It also feels a bit more immersive and in the end the extra main menu just felt unnecessary to me. So now you have to press a menu button (esc or start button) to open the menu.


The menu where Play -> Resume, Gear -> Options, Cross -> Quit.

Level color

Here is an image that shows how the levels are colored on the world map depending on if they are incomplete(red), complete(green) or complete with a discovered secret(white).


The different level colors appearing in the world map.

Ice world prototype

Appearantly I have forgotten to show the new prototype for the ice world on the world map, so here it is:

[Nordanvinden]

Ooh, I like the secret!  Looks appropriately mysterious.

Oh, thanks! Mysterious sounds good!

[Nordanvinden]

#Update 118 - Thoughts regarding the end

Personal playtest

Yesterday I played through the whole game and made bugfixes for a couple of things that I found. I made a list of stuff/bugs I noticed and categorized them into Minor and Major. Major things affect gameplay and Minor ones can be visual or things that does not make a level unplayable.

The end

I also though about how to end the game. The original idea was that when you return to your home planet, the secret cargo that you have been transporting turns out to be something that regains energy to the planet (or something major like that). Then the mayor would steal the large energy diamond, get infected by it and turn into the final boss that you have to defeat.

But now I am thinking about just having a ceremony on your home planet, without the final boss. This is mainly to be able to put more time into making the rest of the game more polished. But I wonder if players will accept this, or react in a bad way since last boss fights are pretty common in games.. 

And regarding what the secrets might do/affect. My brother came up with the idea of adding something extra to the final ceremony scene depending on how many secrets you have collected. I like this idea because of its simplicity but also because it stays a mystery until the end of the game what they actually do.

[Nordanvinden]

#Update 119 - Light on night level

Last Friday I worked on fixing the things that I had discovered during my play through. One of the most visual things were that I did not let the meshes receive light from the player. This had a huge impact on the pitch dark night levels. Here are a couple of images:

Before:







Now:







I also realized that I had set the models to have flat shading instead of smooth. That helped making it smoother as well.

User play test

I had a friend play through the whole game and collected the feedback live. It was a lot of useful information and it seemed as though he was quite pleased in general. He seemed to accept that there was no "final boss fight" but did not like that fact that the first boss was much more rewarding then the second one.

He played on his projector which was quite cool (cinema feeling)

[Nordanvinden]

#Update 120 - Getting caught up in color schemes

Okaay. So yesterday I started fixing the things that was discovered during the Friday playtest I mentioned in the last post. I had one reoccurring issue which was that players would think that the turquoise sky behind the tree line was the actual teleport beam from the ship. So I though "Hey, lets try to change the color of the sky to differentiate them". And then 6 hours later I had been stuck in color-scheme-mode. Classic mistake, but I just couldnt let it go. It is still not finished but I did have some important realizations.

- The ice world is way too bright. When trying out having black in foreground, it becomes clear that this is what I should do.
- The forest level is very well composed (realized again after a lot of testing different new color schemes).

Ice world tests:


Test with white in foreground.


Test with black in foreground.

These are different color scheme tests:











Forest world test:



I Like this one, but compared to the final version, it just looks way more earth like and way less alien, which is what I am going for.

Forest final

I decided to change the beam color instead of the sky. But then I also felt that the enemies should pop in another color, to differentiate them from other pink and purple things in the scene.



I did manage to get some other bugfixes done, and it is what I will keep doing today. But I might have to finish the ice worlds color scheme now that I know its not very good as primarily white..

[Nordanvinden]

#Update 121 - Ice world colors

Yesterday I did a lot of minor fixes on leves where I have gotten relevant feeback. I also changed the color scheme of the ice world to this:





I have a playtest again tonight so I can try out my changes. I am not totally in love with the colors of the ice world, but they work really well in the sense of UX for the player. Its easy to spot enemies, important objects and where they can go. Also its not as straining on your eyes as the white foreground was.

[Nordanvinden]

#Update 122 - The ending

So the playtest yesterday went really well. And I spotted some crucial things that I need to fix while he had some good feedback regarding the ending.

So right now you get to the last planet after finishing the second boss (which is really easy compared to the first boss). When you get there the game basically tries to explain why you have traveled through these planets and then the game exits. Both of my play testers have said that this is very much an anticlimax. So the proposition was to change the story and make it simpler.

Something along the lines of:
- Just being someone who goes to these planets, collects energy och then gets something valuable from the last boss (which I am also intending to implement).
- After that you beam away from the planet to give the feeling of continuing the journey.

Other than that it was mostly minor fixes. Some things are still a bit too hard. One things he mentioned was the acceleration when having collected a lot of speed energy. The character accelerates way to fast in the air so the player looses control. I have tried to fix this before, but I am going to give it another shot.

Also, here is something that I added yesterday to try to explain that the teleporters are driven by the energy that you collect on the levels.


Red and yellow energy from the first planet.


Blue and green energy from the second planet.

[Nordanvinden]

#Update 123 - Transparency sorting

I have finished all the fixes based on wednesdays play test. The major ones were:

- Getting stuck between ice and regular ground materials.
- Flying ability not always getting shut down by touching a magnet.
- Tried adding a fix for not accelerating so fast when in possesion of many speed enegies.
- A lot of minor fixes to make levels smoother.
- A lot of minor bugfixes in general.
- Sorting of transparent objects.

Actually I could fix the last one by just changing transparency sort mode under Graphics -> Camera settings from Perspective to Orthographic.


Pop happening from perspective sorting.


No more popping when using orthographic sorting.

Fewer updates

I am going to start working part time as a game developer at a company that makes VR games. Ill be working 60% which means that I will probably just update this log 1 or 2 times a week from now on. That part is a bit sad but I am super excited to start working there and I feel that this part time thing is perfect right now  

[Nordanvinden]

#Update 124 - Final boss - part 1

So these last two weeks have been kind of busy from starting a new job and trying to figure out the new routines. I did manage to get some work done last week though. I decided to go with having a final boss (as I mentioned in #Update 122). It is supposed to be that final obstacle before being able to beam into space and finish the game.

It basically consists of two parts:
- First part: You need to collect all different types of energy while progressing forward. Meanwhile the boss is lurking underneath you, trying to bring you down.
- Second part: You need to hurt the boss with falling objects a couple of times. When the boss is completed, a white energy will appear from within it. That white energy makes intergalactic travel possible.

I still need to implement the final sequence and even more importantly, the boss behavior. I'm not 100% sure yet about how it will attack or bring the player down 


Boss following player.


Hurting boss in final sequence.


Outline of final map.

[JobLeonard]

I don't reply very often here, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm reading and enjoying every update!

You know, just saying in case it feels like you're shouting into the void.

[Nordanvinden]

#Update 125 - Final boss - part 2

Yesterday I tried to figure out how the boss should attack the player and how to increase the difficulty as the level progresses. So for the first part (before the final battle), this is what I came up with:

First the boss shoots green mindless orbs. Then, as the player progresses, it also starts shooting blue orbs and then pink orbs. The blue orbs shoot straight up as soon as they get a free space above them. And the pink ones are homing orbs.

Technically the orbs gets spawned underneath the players current location. Their initial velocity forward is correlated to the players current velocity. This seems to work fairly well for creating a fun varying obstacle.


Green orbs.


Blue orbs.


Pink orbs.

This is clearly a very early prototype, but I like the way its heading 

[Nordanvinden]

I don't reply very often here, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm reading and enjoying every update!

You know, just saying in case it feels like you're shouting into the void.

Hey, I really appreciate hearing you say that! It absolutely gives me some extra energy to keep posting updates

[Nordanvinden]

#Update 126 - Final boss - part 3

I kept on working on the boss and the logic for finishing the game last friday. When the boss gets defeated (by dropping things in its head) a white crystal appeares. This is the final energy that makes it possible to beam away from this part of the universe. So now it's actually possible to win and finish the game

The ending is very basic now, but I am imagining something like energy charging and then the ship gets beamed into space in a white ray of light.

The last parts are very basic:
- The boss needs balancing and ofcourse, final graphics.
- The ending is just showing that the logic part works.


Respawning pillars.


Final energy.


The temporary ending.


Swinging in part of final map.

[Nordanvinden]

#Update 127 - Settings menu

Yesterday I started by looking into what is actually left to do before the game is finished. I am thinking that I will try to work on the thing that brings the game towards its final state the most. What brings the most value.

The main topics were:
- Sound -> Characters (Sisu, enemies etc), Event triggeres e.g. when beaming to other planet, and music.
- Graphics/Animations -> Characters (Sisu, enemies etc), Boss 2 & 3, final world.
- Menu system -> Tab for Resolution, Graphics quality and monitor selection.
- UI Graphics -> Layout, Icons.

This list only include things related to finishing the game. So Steam, Console porting, Marketing and all that stuff is not in it. I got a bit too stressed and side tracked trying to think about all that stuff at the same time, so I decided to finish the game first, and then think about those things.

I choose to start looking at the menu system to be able to get rid of the "Display resolution dialog". I also chose not to include being able to change input. I will wait for feedback and see if that is something people really want. I will also wait for general feedback that might include things like being able to run in window mode etc.

So what I needed to include now was a way to change resolution, change quality and change display. I decided that dropdown menus felt like the right way to go for setting resolution and quality. Unfortunately, it seems as if they dont scroll correctly when using keyboard or controller input. I have not been able find any events that gives me the information I need to scroll it by myself from code either. Which confuses me a bit since it is such a common scenario. Here is a gif showing my issue:


Dropdown menu not scrolling when using keyboard or controller as input.

I might have missed something obvious here, any tips? 

[Nordanvinden]

#Update 128 - Settings menu

So I finally got the dropdown scrolling correctly for keyboard and controller input. I actually had to hook into Unitys event system to get the information I needed. By both triggering and handling a certain event I could write some code that took care of the scrolling.


Working dropdown menu.

I also ran into a bug where the spaceship moved way faster on lower graphical settings.


Speed bug happening when lowering graphics settings.

And finally over the weekend I put together a series of clips from the game. I did it for a specific purpose (that Im not sure if I can talk about yet) and now, since I already have it, I though I might as well upload it and show it here.

[JobLeonard]

I also ran into a bug where the spaceship moved way faster on lower graphical settings.


Speed bug happening when lowering graphics settings

Hahaha, that reminds me of a Game Jam I once joined where you had a little space-ship that you could send from one planet to the other with a click. You could zoom in and out of the planets, but our programmer mis-coded the speed of the space-ship to be relative to screen dimensions; you always covered the same nr of visible pixels per second. So zooming out would make you speed up relative to the in-game universe!

But this was a happy accident, it gave us a really nice way to control speed with simple control scheme actually worked really well with this game! Time was not an element in the game mechanics (we were making a space-themed logic puzzler), so it didn't break any mechanics, and it actually gave a really cool method of fine-grained control over movement.