Hey guys its me again for another Sunday musings. We had a busy week in BBG this week stretching over multiple projects. While I was busy working on finishing up the Pole-arm/spears package ( title makes sense now) I also had to jump into reprieve main build to create a new way for the player to traverse. This new way of traversing came from watching people play Reprieve and a certain point that seem to be glaringly obvious wouldn't be fun on release. It is one of those things where on paper it looks like it would work and would fit in fine with the design of the game but in practice felt completely lifeless and not worth even trying to fix. The part I am talking about is a climb from the forest to the Air temple. The climb was going to consist of running up bridges suspended above and below a giant chain and populate it with enemies and jumps. In practice was slow boring lifeless slog up a seemingly never ending chain and even upon completion it would not feel to the player that you traveled up high enough to be in that floating temple in the sky. So in my head i came up with a few solutions that would work. But to get a real flow and a tie the world nicely together I pitched the 3rd solution. That being platforms that climb the chain's using cogs turning. These platforms will bring new variation on the game design and allow us to create new types of levels with this designed in. These platforms will be a hive for combat as enemies will drop from above and fly around the platform attacking the player. Some enemies may even be able to disrupt the progress up the chain by slamming on the breaks while others try to protect him. We should get around to implementing a rough version of this later next week. I already have a mock up already created. I also have scope of making the platform destructible so the more enemies and the player fight on it the more platforms and stuff may fall off. Dan implemented the splash of attacks Via object pooling. This makes mad explosions on impact of the attacks on surfaces and enemies. This makes an impact and gives the player a real good feel of impact as it hits making it much more satisfying. The Bubble Wrap effect is the way i describe this. The Bubble wrap effect makes things addictive. Like picking up rings in Sonic or smooshing a goomba in Mario you do it ..... you feel good it makes no impact on the game over all but its satisfying. The ring makes no real difference if you already have one, the goomba can easily be avoided in most cases but players still do these things for the satisfying ping or effect. We now have a better particle script that efficiently turns off particles and resets there timer so when they have been object pooled we will get the same result on each ever single time! Can you spare an Ear for Tunes! Music time and I will allow Dan to go first this time with LagWagon(they are back! in pog form!) with Days of New I am going for another old favorite with Gorillaz and Stylo! If dan can spam lagwagon I can spam Gorillaz mwhahahaha. Well that's another week down :D and 3 in a row for me. Not to make u guys burn out on the ADRIAN factor I will graciously allow Dan to take a turn next week until then!
Have Fun!!!!!! Well well well. Look who is in control again (Adrian) Mwhahaha. If you were expecting your slice of Dan pie I am sorry you must do with a tin of slightly warmed me! This weekend is throwing both me and Dan around a good bit more Dan then my self but still its a weird weekend alright. Lets start with why then I will get around to the weekly doings. Its new PC week here at Burn Bright Games and both me and Dan have gotten new set ups for the following few years. But alas teething problems had all round. As i found out first with the only real problem for me but still effecting my way to work, the graphics card we picked seems to be having a problem with Dual screens on DVI. It is fine with one screen being HDMI and other DVI but when i opt for the dual DVI the second screen fails to get detected. With some digging on the web I have found out that it is a Driver Issue and will be resolved in the future but for now I am left high and dry with one screen. I have found a solution but must wait for shops to open to see if i can get a part locally rather then Amazon. Dan's problems are the fact that he is opting to be a man and build his PC completely himself. This is not a major issue but when he though he had to buy new SATA cables yesterday has left him with no pc today(yet) hence my arrival on the scene. But he found the glorious spare SATA cables at 3am last night and he is in full build mode and just having a few issues with fan direction. Hopefully both me and Dan will be fully functional by the morning :D if not we are both fired and replaced with a flamingo wearing a tutu. Enough about the bad more about the good. During the week I have fully finished all the axes leaving spears and maces left to do and then we can release the weapon pack. I have stuck in a very tight colour pallete while creating these weapons. making sure they will all fit together in game and that none (no matter what style) will look strange and pop out to the viewer. My favorite weapon so far as the large axe on the Left that thing looks like it could chop sum serious logs if you know what I mean ...... ladies. I have also been filling out the Air temple in Reprieve on paper. Coming up with puzzles and level designs that will be unique and memorable for the player. the main way players learn in games is repetition but we want it to feel more like a learning curve then a general slog through the same thing over and over. In most games you see the same tropes of finding a mechanic that works then making it progressively harder and harder and building a game around that. It is true reprieve will have an element of this as players explore the world but we hope that by spacing them out and mixing in unique elements into the design for each encounter that it will feel more natural. Dan has been a busy little Gui elf for the last while perfecting the Gui and implementing experience bar that will be very discreet at the bottom of the screen a few pixels thick. This will thin enough for the player to notice at a glance how far until the next level up and not be so intrusive that it will take up the screen with fancy flashy effects. The mana bar is also implemented on the right hand side of the screen this bar will be alot more active then the health bar and will empty and fill alot during the course of the game. A true legend of reprieve could if timed correctly never run out of mana as we have a quick refill implemented as we want it to feel like a classic platformer but Mana management will stop the spamming of infinite spells. Then came the bug fixes with every build comes bugs. With every bug comes a fix that could inturn create more or fix all. So Dan was busy this week fixing a few more menu bugs that when back was pressed in settings it would reverse any option selected in screen resolution. So with a few spanners and swearing its now fixed. Hats off to you Dan some times I do not envy you being the coder. The DRUMS! They be coming!Let us finish the week with a a few tunes! My Tune is Voodoo Child. And as usual Dan wishes he was a punk rocker :D Well that all folks I am back for the mid week blog so stay around :D. I will go over my Pc specs there so for people who like that stuff be sure to come have a gander! Until then
Have Fun!! |
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