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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsLaserlight: A hard puzzle game
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Le Slo
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« on: August 16, 2017, 11:59:14 AM »

Chapter 1: Long time ago

Not that long, don't exaggerate "chapter 1". Well.. Not so long ago I came up with an idea for a puzzle/exploration grid-based game, you would need to get to the teleport between blocks that shoot untraversables lasers from their sides. All the blocks of the room would move at the same time using arrow keys and the player's controls would be WASD. The goal wasn't only to reach the teleport but to activate them using the laser.

After one month of coding I built a procedural generator of levels. Here a sneak:



What we can see it's:
  • Purple laser blocks: the ones that you can move
  • Red laser blocks: the ones that are fixed
  • Switches on walls: all need to be lit to activate the portal
  • Switches inside blocks: to switch off laser blocks
  • Blue circles: those were teleports, a laser block should stand on one of them to activate the other two
  • Boxes: To help you blocking lasers and movable laser blocks.

I played several times to see if randomly I could find interesting choices and with enough difficulty to dig up and I liked what I found out.

Almost six months later (well... that's pretty long ago), two game jams, and polishing up my second project, I decided to restart "Laser Project" as it didn't have a name at the time. I've been working on it for almost two months from now, and I think it's time to show give some light to my lasers:



There is still a lot of work to do, but I think I've got a start, you will notice some differences. I have done quite some material so I will update little by little this devlog trying not to spoil too much.

See you in chapter 2!
« Last Edit: January 26, 2018, 11:16:32 AM by Le Slo » Logged

afender7
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« Reply #1 on: August 17, 2017, 12:03:41 AM »

Hey, man! Cool to see you've made a dev log now! Nice to see how the game has progressed from the start. I dig the current aesthetic style a lot. It looks a bit like a cross between Linelight and Sokobond. Totally looking forward to playing it some day.

I wonder if maybe the lasers are a bit too visually noisy in the new style, though? When looking at some of your gifs on Twitter with multiple lasers, it was sometimes a bit difficult to figure out the exact start and end points of lasers when they overlapped. Maybe it's easier when you actually play it, though!
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Le Slo
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« Reply #2 on: August 17, 2017, 08:58:57 AM »

Quote
It looks a bit like a cross between Linelight and Sokobond.

Well thanks! I didn't knew about Linelight, it looks great and seems like an interesting puzzle game (is it?). I tried to aim for something simple visually as it's the most difficult part for me. I already iterated it a couple of times and I'm quite happy with the result, I think I may have hit the core aesthetic I aimed for. Here a little evolution of the game graphics:



The background colors are not the ones to come and I have not the experience with shaders to do what I want (you can see some images with me desperately trying) but in term of shapes I think I reached somewhere safe and with good communication with the player. Anyway you can never know when you've reached the top.

Quote
I wonder if maybe the lasers are a bit too visually noisy in the new style, though?

Yes, completely right. It is in my to do list to make the laser beams more subtle and add some particles to the source and end of the laser (I did it a couple of weeks ago but the result was even dirtier). For know I'm just reworking on some of the scripts to avoid redundancies and some level design that I can't resist.

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afender7
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« Reply #3 on: August 17, 2017, 01:43:51 PM »

Cool to see you've gone through a number of visual styles! Your most recent one is definitely the best; I like how it focuses on colour and simple geometry. That's why it reminded me of Sokobond and Linelight.

Looking forward to seeing how the visuals develop! One other suggestion I have is that the player doesn't really stand out from the rest of the game; maybe fill him in with a brighter/contrasted colour?

(Linelight is a decent puzzle game: it starts off quite enjoyable, but the novelty wears off after the first hour or so. It's based on the idea of stripping down various types of gameplay from multiple other genres, including puzzle, stealth and action, to their bare minimum; so the actual gameplay itself is almost never original or unique, which I think is why it starts to get boring after the novelty wears off.)
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Le Slo
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« Reply #4 on: August 19, 2017, 06:43:38 AM »

Chapter 2: The basics



In the first level you learn (I've worked on the "tutorial"):

-You control the player.
-You can also move the laserblocks.
-You can Undo and Restart the level you are in.
-To open the gate you need to activate at least a switch.


The main differences from the prototype from chapter 1 are:
-Levels are in a unique world, therefore you just move the lasers from the level you are in.
-You can cross laser rays. (Level 2 takes charge of teaching that)

It seems easy, but as soon as more than one laser is in the level things start not to be intuitive at first:


The last thing that we need to learn for basic movement is related with this level, why is not as the first one but it's outside our path. The answer is here:



You can unable lasers from moving by blocking (reverse sokoban!) them but that ability won't always be available. 

These are the only rules you need to clear all the levels from the first zone-world and prepare for what's coming.

Soon Chapter 3!

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afender7
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« Reply #5 on: August 19, 2017, 01:51:59 PM »

Great stuff, man! Looking real swish
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Le Slo
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« Reply #6 on: August 22, 2017, 11:50:33 AM »

Chapter 3: The Map

The first project I finished was completely random, I mean, after couple of tutorials of game maker and some experiments with maze generation, I decided to do the first game it came to me without any expectations. The shooter "Laberinth" was born, a "Learn the basics" project.

My second project I did it to learn the hierarchy of objects and expand my knowledge from before. A falling block game with a twist, 60 puzzle levels, 12 timed levels, a practice room with custom random levels, ending, sounds. The casual "Blocks" was born, a full project to tidy my developer mind.

This time I wanted to do the jump between independent levels to a full space game, in other words, focus on level design in a global sense. "Laserlight" is emerging step by step and ideas are everyday changing. I started making a big big room I told me: "Once its full, the game will be finished" (Oh! I was wrong, it's going to be smaller than I thought to keep density at a high level) After the basic programming I started making levels directly on the global room of the game, a bit randomly doing some changes, replaying the chain of levels, watching out for the difficulty curve or avoiding the similarities of levels. When I made several, I started to see that there wasn't a point in forcing a linear world design, it's the same that having independent levels. Without some choice or expectations, the player won't feel the difference.

That was when the first world/tutorial became an independent being and I started to plan the first Main room:






During some of the levels you can already peak some object different from the ones you already know and, finally, this room tells you "There is so much more to learn", well, I hope this is what the room feels like. I'm not sure if it's too many information at one time.

Intrigued? We'll see some of these new objects in future chapters
« Last Edit: August 22, 2017, 12:02:25 PM by Le Slo » Logged

afender7
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« Reply #7 on: August 22, 2017, 01:01:03 PM »

Open-world puzzle games are really interesting to me. There's so much potential for intricate and subtle design. Looking forward to seeing how you tackle it!
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Le Slo
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« Reply #8 on: August 29, 2017, 10:23:39 AM »

Chapter 4: The Present






This is the current state of Laserlight, I've been working the last couple of days working on some of the visual stuff of the game like:

-The lasers after you open a door to know when a door is open.
-The laserblocks fade to black instead of changing color suddenly when you can control them.
-As the ground is know black, laserblocks fade to white when you are near them but you can't control them.
-Iterating a background.

On the other hand we have the mechanics, I think I'm practicly done with the programming of them, last two weeks were fixing bugs and making the system work better. On the video you can already see some of the new stuff, I'll let you discover them.

On the third hand we have the map, the puzzles. I have around 100 of them, only half in the global layout, it becomes harder and harder, as it is hard to keep a "global" structure of levels as you have more. These 50 levels are distribitued in four different worlds and I expect at least 3 more as well as some communication between them.

I will a deeper analysis of some of the stuff in the former chapters. Good bye!
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afender7
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« Reply #9 on: August 29, 2017, 04:41:53 PM »

I like the new style.

Maybe the walls texture is a bit distracting, though?
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Le Slo
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« Reply #10 on: August 30, 2017, 07:25:54 AM »

Thanks!

You are completely right, they are a bit distracting, I made quite a lot of them and this one is one of the less distracting. It works pretty well when you are surrounded by levels, but as soon as you go to a more external part of the world it's kind of dizzy. I need to work on it, as well as I would'nt like it to be that repetitive. Finding the right amount of complexity and subtlety seems like an impossible task, and you spend lot of hours in, what it appears to be a meaningless task.

I also worked a bit on the lasers as you advised, but I think I need to keep working on the particles to get a really good feel (some splash particles when you cross a laser). And a shader! Of course a shader, at least a simple one to getting started on that crazy world (I tried couple of times but you need days and not hours to understand how it works. I think I need to find a cool source for that kind of info).
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afender7
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« Reply #11 on: August 30, 2017, 10:37:31 AM »

Couldn't you just use a flat colour instead of a texture?

Good luck with the shader work... I've never delved into it myself. I hope I never have to.
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Le Slo
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« Reply #12 on: September 02, 2017, 04:29:18 PM »

CHAPTER 5: The Make Up

I like it better now.






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Le Slo
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« Reply #13 on: September 09, 2017, 09:32:49 AM »

Chapter 6: The Playtest

Hello!

I've been thinking and even though I like the distribution of levels as it is know, I need to sacrifice and start over, now that I have plenty more levels, so I can make a global game instead of just some "independent" sections.
I have also worked last weeks on redo all the collision system (I still have some issues in really specific situations that are almost impossible as there isn't any combinations of this nature on the levels I design so far, BUT I still don't like issues).

So as I'm getting rid of some parts of the map as it is know, I think that making one of them a playtest can't be seen as a complete spoiler (I certainly reuse most of the puzzles).

Any way If you are interested please contact me on my twitter (@LeSloDev)

Talk to you soon.
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Le Slo
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« Reply #14 on: January 26, 2018, 11:15:06 AM »

Chapter 7: Laser

I've done a lot of things during these almost five months (Oh... there you go, persistence). As the loading bar announces, the game has really unfolded. I spent two months working on individual level design, just producing, and some general coding.  I crafted around 100 levels during this period, plus other around 100 levels from before made a total of 200 that I needed to replay and test just when I had forgot the solution (most of them), making a really interesting perspective to test your game. Approximately 50 levels were cut out during this process. After that I started to envision how would the game look in a level layout sense, as the art is almost there, for now. I prepared myself:
                                           
And now... I have almost finished. I built 14 of the 17 states you will be in laserlight that consist on a central room with a few branches that you need to pass to solve the main room. These kind of structure has destroyed my previous "restart level", as once you finish a level you can enter it from two places. I have also no music or sounds at all. And, of course, general polishing. Here some gifs to show you the progress:










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afender7
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« Reply #15 on: January 26, 2018, 02:18:17 PM »

Looking sweet man. Looking forward to playing more.
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« Reply #16 on: January 27, 2018, 05:13:27 AM »

Really cool idea, and great execution! PM me if you're still interested in playtesters Smiley
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Le Slo
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« Reply #17 on: March 12, 2018, 07:02:35 AM »

Chapter 8: The end valley

Hello,

Two weeks ago I started to work from full time to part time, which leaves me with a lot of many spare hours to work in developing Laserlight! I'm super happy about it and the game has clearly advance in this period (it's not very remarkable with this gif, but trust me, everything is more efficient and the population of bugs has radically decrease).

The level design is almost done! Only 20 levels to add! I have to figure out yet how to do it, because this would be the last world, so I need something to make the player feel like he is almost finishing. The mechanics in these levels are "different" from the rest of the game (it's a secret!) so I can't apply the same idea for them.

The last playtest (which is currently on, if anyone interested) was super interesting, I got quite a few new ideas which I still need to work on them. How different people think is really curious.

I've been playing around with camera movement (also the background and the particles), which now looks much better, here a gif:



I believe that level design and coding could be done in less that one month. But the sounds and music! Arg! I have no idea how to start, I think I need to take a break from the game and experiment with music for a while, just to make sure that something will appear.

For the narrative I'm not sure if I'll add something, for now there is only one word per world. Sometimes I feel like it's unnecessary and other they fit perfectly. For me the theme of this game is clear, but, as in real life, I have no answer or even a solid opinion about it. Laserlight try to verse about identity, in a very subtle way. It's just you, being one and others, forgetting who you are, seeing yourself different, watching everyone else finding their places and that feeling of not belonging anywhere because you don't know yourself. You, managing different situations with distinct people and how that changes you.

This should be all for now, soon I'll come back with more details, and how knows? Maybe even a release date.





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Le Slo
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« Reply #18 on: May 09, 2018, 06:39:27 AM »

Chapter 9: The turn-back

These two months I've been working in almost every aspect of the game:


-Solid save system, (the game saves every time you cross a door and when you go to the menu), but I still need to think how to handle different saves in game, as I want to avoid text and menus.

-Changed background color (tiny  detail but huge difference). Now the

-Better collisions, I usually had problems with reversing the lasers when the player would be blocked. The decision of making this grid puzzle game feel more free has given me some headaches.

-A lot of polish in existing areas, specially in the last ones. Some really interesting new levels came out of that. I had to type of changes:
    -Individual level polish, which almost always turned out in smaller levels, forcing in restructuring the whole world for aesthetic and optimization matters.
    -Center rooms puzzle. After apprehending all the levels I found that a lot of them were more obstacles than challenges. I wasn't happy with that and had to change too the world layout. For some of the levels, I just tried to minimize the objects (for example I abused the idea of placing a box blocking a movable laser, having two objects for only one purpose, not optimal).

-I started experimenting with music, and although I have yet no solid material, I began to grasp what I am aiming for.

-Reworked "tutorial", the only trouble I hear during playtests it was that when arriving at a level with a non-winnable situation, they didn't know which key to press (well, they did because of videogame literacy, they would only spot the "tutorial" a second time). That was because I presented moving keys in level 1, undo key in level 2 and restart key in level 3, but they could continue playing without using it. Forcing the player to used those keys, may help to remember what does that key do.



For now, it seems like I haven't progress since the last update. I have still 40 puzzles outside the global layout, with some ideas for the ending, ugly main menu, no music. But it feels so much closer.



 
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