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[fishlicka]

Juice World alpha is now available on Itch.io. :D

---------------------- Original Post --------------------------




Hello friends,

I've been working on this for like a month, and plan to work on it for a year or two. Despite the video I've linked, it's actually meant to be a comfortable place to relax and mess around, sandbox style but with progress through nonlinear quest objectives.

Here is some gameplay. Warning: physically painful to listen to.




And here is my own cringeworthy voice acting:
https://youtu.be/0t8CrwXkkqY

Ragdoll Puppetry 101:
The idea is to use ragdolls as puppets because physics are fun and it's easier to handle than armature animation transitions. I don't think it's actually turned out to be easier. I hammered out a basic ragdoll animation/combat system in 2018 for a game called Schwing and am just now getting back to it. There is a git repo here: https://github.com/Jackson-Rain/UnityScripts. It's a bit outdated but hopefully informative.

Most of the characters are stretched vertically using an up-force on the head and a down-force on the feet, with other forces to actually make the feet and body move (Walker.cs). The player, however, is controlled using kinematic rigidbodies connected by joints to the head, chest, and feet. More anchors are used for held items like the mace, and then the player's hand is attracted to the handle. It looks kind of realistic. There is a ray cast downward from the feet and if there is nothing beneath, the player goes limp and falls til they land on something. I make the player jump by yanking its shoulders upward.

Status:
I'm working on getting a demo out as soon as possible. Was trying for new years but didn't want to rush. I have big plans, but for now am just working on the MVP, which would consist of a light tutorial and the story intro, and a bit more game to play.

As always, feedback would be awesome but I also just want to share this with people who might like it ^^

I'm posting some stuff on instagram now too!

P.S. help me think of a better name? The game is about juice.

[TonyManfredonia]

This is absolutely hysterical in the best way possible. Reminds me of QWOP with better controls.

Will there be character selection? This has the potential to incorporate all sorts of whacky situations (pun intended...? *ragdoll-whack*) with different movesets, character sizes, unique abilities, etc.

One way or the other, you have a new fan! This made me smile today, so thank you for your work!

[FawfulBeans]

Beautiful. enjoying those clanging metal noises

[fishlicka]

Thank you both I'm happy you like it.

It's taking longer than expected (like always) to get the first build out. I'm pretty close now, I have the tutorial story all planned out but I still need to model and write/record some dialog. I have a pretty wacky open story planned because I don't know what I want just yet. I am going to get part of it out soon so I won't spoil it just yet ^^

Will there be character selection? This has the potential to incorporate all sorts of whacky situations (pun intended...? *ragdoll-whack*) with different movesets, character sizes, unique abilities, etc.

What? You don't want to play as a supple naked mole rat person with tiny limbs? There are indeed many possibilities and I am hoping for suggestions. I am planning character customization (appearance, armor, stats, possible changes to body proportions) and maybe a possession mechanic. And yes it is an excellent pun x)

There are two weapons so far. There will be spells that cost energy that can do just about anything that I can program. There will be vehicles that run on juice and a souls-like level up mechanic with juice as experience. Oh and you can already drink juice from fallen monsters, which I'll show soon.

Added a juicy title animation:



Meet Miss Slithers:



And some really unpolished flight:



I hope I'm not going overboard with the gifs... I'll change them to links if I have to.

[velocirection]

And here is my own cringeworthy voice acting:

Nah that voice acting got me juicy~

[Drawmaneatereater]

Thats looks great
  \\\\\\\\
 d b
    \  о  /
Great design of creatures !

[velocirection]

Thats looks great
  \\\\\\\\
 d b
    \  о  /
Great design of creatures !

That got me juicy too~

[fishlicka]

Lol thank you both, and ty velocirection for sharing my video x)

[velocirection]

Lol thank you both, and ty velocirection for sharing my video x)

Jesus don't look at my twitter! You'll go blind~

Np though, I was just about to say, all jokes aside, this looks really interesting and I can't wait to play it.

[fishlicka]

Ever think about life as a game that you are speedrunning? I've been trying to take the optimal path for a week now and I'm a bit tired, but here are some updates:


Floating/flight is more animated, costs stamina now. A witch sings spooky music while you float. Idk.

Stop screwing around in class!

The right hand moved that way by chance, but maybe I can give it some defensive AI? Shield equippable?

It's a Juice Door!

Vampiric juice sucking. You'll have to imagine the slurping sounds for now x)

Juice
 - Juice Particles collected when you blow up some objects
 - Juice Doors can be fed juice
 - Juice Sucking from dead monsters
 - Stat Upgrades window, currently costs 0 juice to level up

Combat System
 - HP / Stamina Bars, stamina as in Dark Souls
 - hit recoil on collision with monster
 - fancy hue-shifting screen flash on damage taken
 - more consistent than before, but still pretty derpy

Dialog
 - Banjo Kazooie style, plays an audioclip for each word at random pitch, works well enough.

Tutorial is complete!!!
 - Mrs Slitherss
   - is now an English lady, voice generated with AWS Polly's neural TTS service (it's surprisingly not too bad)
   - speech is organically interrupted in between words, i.e. "Time for a quiz, first question: -- Oh ok, just leave then. That's fine."
   - murders you sometimes with laser eyes
 - a Metal Laddy mischievously teaches you to fight and tries to kill you, will drop out of school with you if you let him live
 - a Juice Door bars your exit
 - dank intro sequence that I will not spoil
 - Checkpoints so you don't have to do it all again if you die lol

Open World
 - a major work in progress
 - really empty graveyard "hubworld"
 - get visited by Batty
 - seamless roaming on infinite terrain with random spawns, but not much variety yet
 - easy to get lost in the fog

I also compiled a montage of bloopers/fun moments from when I first made the active ragdoll player:




Now that I've gotten some core features out of the way I can work on content, i.e. weapons/toys, monsters, levels, and story. I'm always open to suggestions.

I will add more to the open world before I release a demo. Sorry it is taking so long, but I think the polish is worth the wait.

[velocirection]

Lookin good!!!

Cool laser eyes on the snake :3

[fishlicka]

Status: It's still not ready. Probably another week. The tutorial has been done for awhile but I don't want the player to reach the open world and feel like it is empty. I've got a few monster types spawning on an infinite landscape, but right now it's very homogeneous. Working on some rare encounters to spice things up.

Also just started working on a non-procedurally generated subterranean dungeon. A welcome break from the infinite landscape.


Like those clown punching bags that get back up when you hit them.

Some basic weapons, the sword might get an empowered slash or something?

Now you can level up and stuff

Added monsters:
 - Koaloth, live in trees
 - Gobbledeer, like a deer with a turkey gobble
 - Klowns, which multiply on death

Added weapons:
 - Shovel with satisfying ping sound
 - Baseball bat
 - Great Sword

Mechanics:
 - Hit esc to spend juice on stats.
 - Power swings: hold down mouse to increase weapon swing strength.
 - Hitting monsters now spawns juice particles, so you don't have to drink from every corpse to get juice.
 - Player gains armor briefly after getting hit, to combat freakishly high damage when you get stuck in a demon mosh pit
 - Worked on monster movement, including punches/kicks. Lots of work to do.
 - Collision sounds now differ depending on what part of weapon hits, i.e. shovel blade vs. handle
 - Omni-directional flight w/ WASD and mouse look

I made an instagram too, and a twitter but I haven't used it.
https://www.instagram.com/gamesbyfishlicka/

[fishlicka]

Meet a scary friend in a saloon

New noodle legged monster

Leaping skeletons that shatter on death

I haven't done a great job of tracking my changes, my last git commit was weeks ago. This project is still so experimental I dont really sit down with a plan for what I'm going to do. I've been working on adding depth to the gameplay, and different spaces to explore.

Some changes:
 - Started on main menu, (new game, continue, settings)
 - Basic player saving/loading
 - Added two monsters (lanky + skellytons)
 - Started on new area: a cabin and a cave
 - Textured saloon and added cowboy guy to chat with
 - Prompt system ("Press 'E' to [action].") that efficiently picks nearest/highest priority prompt-action
 - Got the whole mess running on Mac, too
 - Getting help from a friend on some music!

Also wrote a .bat script for generating gifs, lol:

Code:

ffmpeg -i %1.flv -ss %2 -t %3 -b:v 200M -maxrate 200M -bufsize 100M -r 30 -y %1_cut.flv
ffmpeg -i %1_cut.flv -vf "crop=640:480:300:100" -b:v 200M -maxrate 200M -bufsize 100M -r 30 -y %1_cropped.flv
ffmpeg -i %1_cropped.flv -vf "scale=320:240" -b:v 200M -maxrate 200M -bufsize 100M -r 30 -y %1_scaled.flv
ffmpeg -i %1_scaled.flv -i palette.png -filter_complex "[0:v][1:v] paletteuse" -r 30 -y %1_wrongpalette.gif
ffmpeg -i %1_scaled.flv -filter_complex "[0:v] palettegen" -y palette.png
ffmpeg -i %1_scaled.flv -i palette.png -filter_complex "[0:v][1:v] paletteuse" -r 30 -y %1.gif

I like generating one gif using the palette.png from another video, because sometimes the filesize is significantly decreased.

Really not much left now before the first public demo. I thought it'd take a week, a month ago, so I don't want to estimate.

[fishlicka]

Hehe hey there, sorry for the long silence. I wanted to have the thing out weeks ago but it keeps evolving. Classic scope creep. Here are some pretty moving pictures:


Main menu screen, I'm not 100% happy with it but we'll see what happens.

It's totally not a bonfire from dark souls haha shhhhh

Combat with giant monsters is weird, might make a shrink ray or personal growth spell to even the scales.

Me getting absolutely megakicked into oblivion.

Thre road to heck is paved with slippery goo.

Changes:
- Doubled global gravity because it was taking forever to fall after a jump.
- Wrote a vertex displacement/color shader for juice that uses HSV color space to make pretty rainbows.
- Monsters now release juice particles when hit.
- Checkpoint mechanic similar to DS1's bonfires, you can level up at them using juice.
- Monster size, damage, health, and juice increase with level.
- Monster level increases as you travel farther from the center of the map. (They get huuuge!)
- A compass that points to the the graveyard, and one that points to the next dungeon.
- Hats! They're just fashion right now though.
- A menu system, settings window, saving and loading.
- New weapon: Plunger... it's complete garbage but fun anyways.
- The first hand-made dungeon, which leads to Heck.
- Lots of general tweaks to physics and sound design.
- Flavor text for weapon pickups and some events

The first build could be out as soon as next week, so there are some things I'm not showing :D I have one big surprise at the end that I'm working on right now. After the experimentation phase slows down I'll work on adding more items, monsters, and abilities. I'm really excited to be at this point!


P.S. I'm also posting on Instagram, check that stuff out if you want more.

[QOG]

This game looks absolutely awful in a delightful way, or absolutely delightful in an awful way, I'm not sure which, but in any case, great progress and I look forward to seeing more.

[fishlicka]

It's out! Yeesh, finally. I added a good-enough-for-now boss level and polished everything a bit. It's still got a ways to go but its as a point where I can share it.

It's free, get it at Itch.io for PC with Mac support coming later today.

and thank you QOG ^^

[Micah.WhiteBoxGaming]

If drugs were legal I'd sell this game with a free hit of acid with proof of purchase lol Seriously sell this game at any pink Floyd laser light show.

[Suttebun]

this game looks beautiful, and got a legitimate 'oh no' out of me

[Oblix]

    I couldn't figure out how to get our boy Ingot down to the graveyard with us, he just disappears. may we meet him again as a fellow elementary school "drop-out".

   Plus this game gets bonkers once you max out the numbers.

   

   

[fishlicka]

Whew, since I released it last week, I've updated it four times, not counting hotfixes. I've been watching people play and rushing to smooth out faults in the gameplay. There are a some persistent bugs. Also the tutorial doesn't really suffice, there are a lot of less than intuitive mechanics introduced all at once and some people get stuck. I don't know how to put the power-swing mechanic into words so that people will get it quickly.


The plunger, worst weapon in the game (so far).


The new Skull hat. It's really hard to get a look at the player's face in this game.


I made Heck a lot prettier this week, using spherical UV unwrap and texture scaling/scrolling.

Changes summary:
- Improved Ingot/Signy dialogs to more clearly explain how mechanics work
- Added triggered monster spawns in the Evil Cabin and Cavern
- Made the Evil Cavern / Heck a lot prettier and smoother
- Made the graveyard into a quest that rewards you with a Skull Hat
- Added Mr. Fox to the graveyard, he doesn't do much right now
- Made compass a little more clear, lots of people thought there was a mission out in the wilderness
- Generally polished or fixed a lot of little things in the game
- Started using Butler on itch.io for the automatic updates
- Introduced like six game-breaking bugs and mostly fixed them (mostly)

I've been posting devlogs on itch.io for each update as well:
https://fishlicka.itch.io/juice-world/devlog/131530/juice-world-v001-available
https://fishlicka.itch.io/juice-world/devlog/131796/001-hotfixes
https://fishlicka.itch.io/juice-world/devlog/132236/002
https://fishlicka.itch.io/juice-world/devlog/132507/003
https://fishlicka.itch.io/juice-world/devlog/132507/004

I'm currently working on a couple big bugs, but after that I really want to add in a leaping, flying fish monster and a flail. Also the boss needs work. I have his voice acting like half done. And everyone wants to fly back up to school and beat the hell out of Mrs Slitherss, so I'll have to do something about that.

Also on the agenda is an inventory system, though that's probably a little ways off.

Micah, haha thank you, I like making things trippy.
Suttebun, that's what I like to hear x)
Oblix, yeah we'll see him again. And I see you have mastered aerial combat lmao

Thank you all for the encouragement, it means a lot.