Womp womp, no update today

This weekend I am in San Francisco helping a friend of mine QA her game for its upcoming release on the PS4! If you like platforming, you'll like it. If you like space, you'll like it. If you like cute animals, you'll like it. And, if you like heart-crushingly tragic yet ultimately cathartic stories, you'll really like it.

This week I had intended to do the treatment I did for the first 5 or so levels on the rest of the game. I began working on this on Sunday, after last week's update was done. I'd planned on continuing work throughout Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but I really only had Monday, as Tuesday is always a packed day for me and Wednesday I spent packing (My trip began Thursday after work, and continues into Monday the 27th).

I also thought I might get some work done on the plane and possibly here, in San Fran. Unfortunately, this is not possible. So, no new build this week. Sorry!

I have come to some tentative conclusions about the progression of levels in Pierce. One is that I want to push the introduction of enemies back a bit. I have wall-based concepts, like Wrap and Bounce walls, out of the way early. And I have goal-based concepts, like basic goals, multi-hit goals, and linked goals, also out of the way early (early, in this case, being before level 5 or so). I have modifying concepts like movement, timers, and switches, but they all kind of show up in a rush towards the end of the game, along with boost pads. Enemies are an important goal-based concept, but I think I can wait a little bit longer before introducing them. Maybe I'll introduce moving elements before then. Expect to see the results of this next week.

Lights, Camera, and Level Polish

This week's build is up here!

No super-visible upgrades this week, except I've made tweaks to a few of the earliest 5 levels (Most notably, levels 3 and 5). I wanted more of the levels in Pierce to have the kind of composition that the later levels have. Visual balance and focus are important, to me. I was going to revise them more drastically, but I held myself back. I think the existing designs still hold merit, and I'll see if I want to trash them later.

In the case of level 5, I think bringing the wrap walls inwards, detaching the bounce wall, and evenly spacing the linked nodes makes each element easier to observe and learn about. I think the following is a bit more visually intuitive than the previous design:

I particularly went back and forth on level 4, which is the introduction to linked goal nodes. I wanted to redo the level so that it matched the layout of level 3, but with linked goal nodes instead of normal goals. This is a technique I use later in the game to teach boost nodes and switches.

On the left, level 14 introduces Warp Walls. On the right, level 15 introduces Boost Plates

I use a level the player has already solved as an environment to introduce a new mechanic. It doesn't seem to work as well for linked goal nodes. I think I want as little noise as possible in levels in which I introduce new goal types...

I made the main camera and directional light which appear in each scene into prefabs. This was something I've been meaning to do for a while. This way, I can make lighting and camera adjustments once, and not have to adjust them by hand in every scene. I've never needed to, until now. I've adjusted the light intensity down in each level by 40%. It's difficult to get a sense of how bright the levels are going to be after they're built. And lights don't build from scene to scene in-engine, so I'm often playing with un-built lighting while I'm working. We'l see how this looks.

Oh and as always, the charging-up noise is by Javier Zumer. It's being used under this license. I've modified it.

A piece of the Panel Pie

New build is up here!

This week I decided to try to better visualize the player's progress towards clearing each goal. I remember there was a player at Indie City Games who didn't recognize that the goal in one level required 8 hits to clear, so I wanted to find a way to call this out more obviously to the player. I decided the perfect way to do this is to re-use the panel I just implemented for linked goals. Here's how it looks:

In the picture above, the player is about to hit a goal that requires 8 hits to clear. Currently, there are two hits, and the panel is two eighths full.

And here the player has passed through the goal for their third hit. The text shows 3/8, and three eighths of the panel have been filled.

And so on and so on.

Next week, I want to re-examine my level pacing. Specifically, I want to see if I can be introducing new concepts at a more structured pace. I'm thinking a new concept every three levels, with a break after every six levels for a more complex, challenging level.

I should also finally decide what happens when you complete a level and then die. Currently, the fail panel overlaps the win panel, so you technically die.

As always, the charge-up sound is by Javier Zumer. I'm using it and modifying it under this license.

Small updates to an irksome level

New builds is here

Not a big update this week. Hardly an update at all - I was distracted during this week and gone during this weekend. I tweaked level 10 (the very annoying one with two crossed timed walls) to try to make it more palatable. The interval at which the walls swap is longer, and I've moved the goals inward a bit. I also made the middle obstacle much larger.

Hopefully this makes the level easier, and the solution more obvious. So far it's been fairly inscrutable.

As always, charging-up noise is by Javier Zumer, and is being used/modified by me under this license.

Visible timers and further bug fixes to lines

The newest build is up here!

Not a huge update today. I implemented radial timers on linked goal nodes so that you can see how much time is ticking down as you attempt to clear that goal. In Gerald Kelley's Abzorb postmortem, he mentioned that in his game players rarely if ever paid attention to elements outside of a very tight radius around the player. If that holds true for Pierce, players won't notice the radial timers I've put in. My hypothesis is that, in Pierce, player's attentions are less focused on the arrow and more focused on the obstacles. We'll see.

I also cleaned up a bug with guide lines which caused guide lines to linger erroneously. It was most noticeable when projecting guidelines through two wrap walls of different lengths. Should be good now!

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

Indie City Games feedback and progress.

Sorry! No new build this week!

I happened to be very swamped with work and other things that needed taking care of during the time I usually devote to working on Pierce. I did, however, take the game out to show to some developers at a meetup called Indie City Games. If you're a game developer and in Chicago, you should really think about going. I got a small handful of people to play, and their feedback was interesting. Here's what I found out:

• The numbers above goals which require X/X hits to destroy need to be more noticeable. Maybe they could also flash when they reset to zero.
• The linked goals should give way more feedback, considering the time limit you have to complete them in is not static from level to level. They also, come to think of it, could use some visual marker to show which linked nodes are linked together. This has been keeping me from implementing levels with multiple groups of linked nodes. It also would clear up some confusion with players believing that non-linked nodes are linked. And FURTHERMORE, if I'm visually showing which linked nodes are linked, I need to also be visually showing which objects correspond to which switch. This was a big bullet.
• Level 10 is by far the most hated level in the game! This doesn't exactly surprise me. The timing puzzle in that level is difficult to figure out. I'm convinced that the puzzle has merit, but I clearly need to tweak it to be less frustrating.
• People seem to like the feel of the game, even watching it, before they've played it. The charging mechanic makes people feel excited. The game, "Pops," one person said.
• People also seem to like the feeling of being able to solve all the parts of a level in a single charge. That was surprising, but not in hindsight. The feedback for bursting a goal seems to be at a good level. People really want to explode those goals, and explode as many at once as possible... Some of my best levels right now can't be solved except in at least two charges... That's probably okay, since I still give people the joy of bursting several orbs in a single go. But it's important to know that in the future a challenge mode could exist where the game counts how many charges you use, and grades you using that number. Kind of like the "par" at a golf course.

Next week: I'll at least have started on addressing those first two bullets.

Linework, Continued

This week's build can be played here!

Not a big update this week. I added the guideline functionality to warp walls, and did some polishing up on how the lines are displayed. Of note, guide lines colliding with bounce walls will more accurately show you where the player is going to go. See, the player is displaced by a distance proportional to its length, so instead displaying the guidelines like this:

It's more accurate to display them like this:

Not as pretty, but I plan to eventually let all guidelines intelligently adjust their start and end widths so that it seems like one contiguous line.

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