NYE Is the Deadline!

(This week's (and I guess this year's) build is up right HERE!)

This week I did some tinkering. I realized that the reason why moving objects are passing right through the player if the player is not moving is because, duh, the moving object itself doesn't have a rigidbody attached to it. It's really only conspicuous in one level, so I only added a rigidbody there. It's possible that that decision comes back to bite me, but it's also the only place in the game where you are advantaged by letting a moving object try to move through you.

But that got me wondering about colliders, which got me wondering about the problem I've been trying to solve for a long, long time - the issue of the player mysteriously losing a ton of momentum after interacting with walls mid-charge. I'd played around with different colliders and things in the past, but I couldn't remember if I'd tried just making the player's collider into a trigger. There would obviously be certain things that would break, but would it solve the issue of momentum loss?

As it turns out, the game runs pretty well even when the player's collider is just a trigger. Most of the logic keeping the player from going through stuff is done with raycasts. And lo and behold, I experienced no loss of momentum on several playthroughs of the game. I won't say that the issue is fixed, because I've been wrong about this before, but it's promising. Of course, I can't just keep the player a trigger all the time, so I just have the player's collider turn into a trigger during charges. It actually works out great that way, since the speed at which the player moves during charges is the whole reason I needed to write the raycasting logic in the first place. As to what was the cause of the issue in the first place, I guess that under certain conditions, when interacting with a bounce wall, the player would turn in such a way that a corner of the player's collider would intersect with the wall's collider, Unity's physics system would then try to stop the player from moving... I think.

We'll see if this solution causes any other issues, but for now all I need to do is to solve some cosmetic bugs caused by this. On an unrelated note, I also need to make boost plates play a sound effect when you go over them. I can't believe I didn't do that yet.

As always, the charging-up noise is by Javier Zumer. I'm using it under this license.

Xmas Eve is the Deadline

(This week's build is here!)

This week's progress is really simple: I added a new level and I made a slight change to the logic of linked goal nodes.

Here's the new level:

As you can see, it's pretty hectic. That being said, there's only one trick to learn in this level, and that's how to navigate the spinning red wall. The other elements of the level are pretty tame. All except the moving boost plates. However, I'm confident that those will be less intimidating to the player because they've already seen that trick before in this level:

I'm not sure what levels are going to end up making up this final third of the game, the part of the game where I want to have a conversation with the player about what all of these mechanics can accomplish in unison, but I'm enjoying finding new ways to combine movement, wall types, goal types, and extra obstacles like boost plates and switches.

As always, the charge-up noise is by Javier Zumer, and I use and modify this asset under this license.

Back next Sunday!

Sorry, no post this week! I had some other things I needed to handle which took priority.

More level tweaking

(This week's build can be found here)

I didn't have much time to work on the game this week, but I did change two levels. One level asked the player to go through some bounce/wrap walls to hit four linked nodes, then hit a switch to be able to do the thing all over again. The switch was totally unnecessary, so I removed it. I might also remove that level entirely later, since I don't really ever ask the player to hit linked nodes more than once in a row in later levels of the game.

However, speaking of using linked nodes that require multiple hits per node, the next level does now use them. Here's what it looks like:

Here's what the level used to look like:

The preceding levels use 45 degree diagonal bounce walls. I thought using two at once would feel like a natural progression, but the solution to this level is uninteresting. There's really only one solution and the level itself isn't that fun to move around in. The level I replaced it with is a lot more fun to move about in. There is a "best way" to solve the puzzle of hitting both linked nodes twice, but there are a bunch of other ways to do it too. If you're fast enough, I believe you can clear this level without even needing to use the bounce wall. My one worry is that it doesn't quite explain what the "trick" of the level is, so maybe it'll be frustrating when people try it.

"Charging up" sound effect is by Javier Zumer. I use and modify it under this license.

Three Red Diamonds

(This week's new build is up here!)

This week was more about level deletion than level creation. I feel like the more levels I design, the better I have an idea for what levels I'd like to cut. I cut the last level of the game easily, because I'd been meaning to cut it for a while, but I also cut two later levels that didn't show off Warp Walls in quite the light I wished they did, along with two earlier levels that were maybe a little novel but not actually pushing the player to do that many cool things. One of those levels might come back, because I still like it.

And then I made this new level, right at the end:

I mentioned this way back when, but I really like starting these later levels with three kill walls arranged as diamonds in the center of the screen. They break the level up in a really cool way, and I can have walls running off of them in what feels like natural directions to further constrain the player while keeping the level aesthetically pleasing.

As always, the charge-up noise is by Javier Zumer and I use and modify that noise under this license.

Why don't I do this more often?

(Hi all, the new build can be found HERE)

Remember when I said, three weeks ago, that I hoped I'd be updating the blog more frequently? I do too! How time makes fools of us all.

I have been working on the game though. I've been at a bit of a loss as to how to tell when I'm done with this game, and how to tell what levels are good or not, or when I've managed to create enough levels, but I think I've had a small breakthrough. The first third of the game should be teaching wrap walls (the blue ones), bounce walls (the purple ones), kill walls, switches, goals, enemies, and linked goals. It should also introduce the fact that these elements can sometimes move about the level on their own. This is the core of the game. Warp walls (the green ones), and boost plates get added on top of that in in the second third of the game, and the final third of the game stops teaching new concepts and focuses on finding new combinations of existing objects. There are a lot of combinations I haven't even gotten around to trying yet, like parenting a bounce wall to a rotating game object:

This level has two relatively easy puzzles to it, and both simply involve finding a good place to position yourself and then bounce yourself off of the bounce wall. The enemy can be killed with a simple bounce, but the linked goals require you to also travel through a warp wall. It feels good that the level forces you to move around it. Or, it would if moving objects interacted with players correctly. Currently walls won't affect you if you're standing still. I feel like I was going to investigate that long, long ago, but never did. Oh well. Attaching game objects to game objects is super basic, and I don't know why I haven't been doing it up until now. This is what I think the last third of the game could preoccupy itself with.

Oh, I also deleted some levels, and adjusted others. Last build, I had this:

Which was just, far too complicated. The warp walls attached to the center triangle moved back and forth even though you were turning the kill walls off, and not circumventing them. That got me thinking. What if the idea was you needed to circumvent those walls, instead of switching them off? I removed the switches, and I also removed the moving walls, as this level would be hard enough without them. Here's what I was left with:

Okay, it looks hardly different, but it plays a lot better.

I may not keep to the formula I laid out above, with the thirds and everything, but I'm starting to have ideas about what kind of mechanical arc I want the game to have. And yeah, the arc I'm describing is a totally obvious one, but it somehow feels more concrete in my mind now.

As always, the charge-up noise is by Javier Zumer. I use and modify the asset using this license.

Level Deletions, Level Edits, and a return to the blog

(This week's build is available RIGHT HERE)

Hi! It's been a while! I was very busy for a bit there. Hopefully, I can update the blog a little more regularly from here on out.

This week I changed a lot of level stuff. The seventh level now much more closely resembles the eighth level, in order to more smoothly transition into linked goal nodes. The way he seventh level used to work was not really doing the job.

I also made a new level that looks like this:

I like the look of it a lot, but we'll see how fun it is to play. The solution to this one is actually really simple, so I think it'll be good as the new tenth level. It's kind of an end-cap to all the stuff that comes before we introduce bouncing walls and the puzzles get simple again.

Oh, and the ninth level, which used to look like this:

Now looks like this:

The walls hanging off the sides were unnecessary. This level is just supposed to do one thing: be impossible to solve if you hold down the charge button fully every time you charge. It should be as simple as possible beyond that. Not to mention this design is far more aesthetically pleasing.

That's it for this week! As always, that charging-up noise is by Javier Zumer. I use and modify the sound under this license.