And a new saving system. Now we save on a queue. Important saves happen fast, less important ones can wait for the right moment.. This solves a few bugs related to saving. : ]
Music: A Drop a Day - Hot Tub.
Light Scenarios for each planet. Now every time we teleport to a new planet, and not just a new level, we change Theme and Light Scenario. This will eventually include a weather system. For now there's just one theme.. and its dark version. For testing. So only a bit of light variety, but things look samey. There will be more variation in this system, to make each planet look unique.
And a new saving system. Now we save on a queue. Important saves happen fast, less important ones can wait for the right moment.. This solves a few bugs related to saving. : ] Music: A Drop a Day - Hot Tub.
Much improved camera! : ]
Simpler, follows cleanly, no more trickery. I think this works much better. It's got separate control for vertical and horizontal lag. I've saved a few presets, and named them from Very Soft to Very Sharp. It's also very useful to use VSync or Nvidia GSync to sync the frame rate to your monitor. I'm recording video at 60 FPS, but my monitor is set to 75Hz. A bit of a mismatch there, but in game things flow smoothly when VSynced at 75. I've allowed not only VSync, but also frame limits to 60 72 120 144 240 [360 480.. dunno why, but if tech advances I will edit these numbers to anything that makes sense] and 1 friggin thousand... meaning unlimited, by today's standards.
Camera Styles.. One dynamic, more jumpy, has more punch, better for playing. One chill, very soft jump, better for watching.
I'm still not sure about the rotation thing tho. It's really essential for this procedural world. But atypical for a top down camera. In fact, it's really bad for a true top down, so I pushed the camera as low as possible.. at around 45-50 degrees. Can't push it lower without breaking core gameplay and world building. So the camera feels more top than 3rd person, and rotation can get some people dizzy. More testing, tweaking, and redesign needed.. Maybe I will turn the game into a more traditional top down, flatter.. the assets will have to be smaller, close to the ground, and overall verticality much less dramatic. : /
The Traveler is the start of your Journey. It bends space and time to travel to new worlds.. That's why the Traveler never really needs to move. SpaceTime bends around it instead..
For a civilization that has achieved movement by Warping or Teleportation, there's really no point traveling in more primitive ways. Movement has a different meaning for them.. and it impacts the way their world looks and functions. There should be no roads or bridges.. Wait a minute, my planets abound in broken chunks of what looks like roads and bridges and platforms. Eh well. Gameplay. We could assume a few things tho. One, this Alien civilization needed a lot of ways to move around. Warping was a shortcut, maybe often busy, but not all roads have to be shortcuts. A 10 minutes walk, or fly, or bubble [which is maybe what you do when you float in a bubble like a magical princess..], doesn't require teleportation. Two, what appears as broken chunks of roads and bridges to us.. maybe had different functionality in reality. And maybe they looked quite differently, ages ago, when they were in use. I will change Traveller to Traveler, in US spelling, which I normally use. For consistency. And.. dialogue output! I've extended the Raven dialogue box to a lot more than just Raven. It's much clearer now what does what and the meaning of most things.
Lots of updates. And the GUI has been reworked to support the changes. We now have a large Life bar and 3 small bars: Xplore, Glow, and Pulp [as in.. Pulp Planet Clues].
The main change I made is Planets. And the story is: We are not ON Pulp Planet.. we are on a discovery mission, looking for Pulp Planet. We're exploring the overgrown ruins of a Fallen Alien Empire, in the Far Away Galactic Archipelago. We teleport from planet to planet, we gather data to find more planets. We have to reach a high level of XPlore to find Dark Planets. And only here we can find Clues that lead us to our goal: Pulp Planet. We are an Alien being of Glow Matter, we feed on this Glow, and we use avatar bodies built from Glow. We cannot touch anything that moves, unless it's made from Glow. Or we virus our avatar and eventually destroy it. We can fix it with Glow Stones.. It's where we also find Mr Raven now. Short for Space Raven.. Carrier of wisdom and stuff. Another important update is the Compass. No, there will be no map. You can explore randomly and you won't get lost. The Compass shows you the only thing you really need, the Exit. It's attracted to the Glow Gates / Teleporters. So.. I didn't want levels to be either very small or purely linear, I like that you can spawn anywhere in the level, and the exit will be at a fair distance from you, and that the level is only semi-linear. You can get a little bit lost. I didn't want you to be reaaally lost, and hop around in circles like a frustrated pigeon. You're supposed to move fast, collect fast, avoid all-hell. If you spend too much time in one area the creatures will increase aggro and become unmanageable. The Compass, streamlined interaction, simple action, simple UI, no brainy tasks, and aggroing monsters to top it up [in a future update, I need to rethink and redo the AI], will ensure fast, fluid gameplay. At some point I wanted to make a running game, inspired by driving and parkour. But driving for me is not as interesting as exploration. It's purely linear, you only need to get to the end of the track, as fast as possible. While exploration comes with more possibilities, it's a lot more open. And parkour.. well.. that would be tough to design around. So fast exploration is my idea for now: collect glow, collect clues [future update], find boosters [future update], find the exit. Avoid dangers. I want the game to move fast and have many, small, manageable obstacles. You don't get punished for making one mistake.. but make a few more, in a short time span.. and.. : / Difficulty increases tho, and when we reach the Dark Planets, we reach the Void [future update]. The Void swallows you whole.. No more Friendly Caustic Ocean here. You hit the Void, you are lost to it in a split second, during which you can rethink you entire life.. And then you're back at the start. Rogue-like. Your old avatar has been virused, corrupted, erased. The only thing you keep is data about Pulp Planet. And there will be an Intro Area [soon!], maybe you're on an Interstellar Mothership.. You chose a new avatar and start a new journey. Last but not least... XPlore is now a Sign. Instead of Accel [which is again part of Run. Run + Accel]. So we gather more XPlore and Pulp [Planet Clues] points if we lvl up XPlore. We also gather a bit of extra Glow. Similarly, if we lvl up Glow, it gives a slight boost to XPlore and Pulp. They friends. ^ ^ They reinforce each other, and I think this works great! Now it's much less likely you will get to a high lvl without getting any boost to Glow or XPlore at all. So 6 basic signs: Run and Jump lvl up locomotion. XPlore and Glow lvl up the 2 forms of XP: exploration and glow. Life and Protect lvl up life and damage reduction. The last, seventh Sign, is Skill. Or Power. As in.. Superpower. If the old power/energy is now called Glow.. we can call the old skill.. Power? Maybe. Every now and then I'm thinking of how different we are, how no 2 people would react the same facing the same problem. I mean we live in a world where not even 2 doctors could come up with the same diagnostic. So this morning I was thinking of what a genius coder I am and how I could write something like.. And then the feedback that comes from Japan:
Uhhhh... was this written by Japanese coders??... And then the feedback that comes from China: This not good this made in Japan! And then the feedback that comes from India: Very good Sir. And then the feedback that comes from Saudi Arabia: ... And then the feedback that comes from Poland: How could you write something so fucking stupid? And then the feedback that comes from Germany: This code ist not very good.. ist shite. And then the feedback that comes from France: It's OK, it's not great but it's OK, I think it may work.. no? And then the feedback that comes from UK: It could do with a bit of improvement. You could name your Custom Event for instance, don't use delays, and be aware of the high for loop cost. Doesn't this crash the game? Cheers! And then the feedback that comes from US: It's great, just maybe change a few things? Could you maybe simplify the spaghetti and have the execution flow clearer? Also, name your variables and it's not great that you're starting 999999999 delays that last 99999 seconds.. Uhm.. I would probably start clean and rethink the code a bit? Just a bit. But other than that, it's pretty good. Keep it up! Let us know how it goes. And uhm... the feedback that comes from Aliens from outerspace too: ... ... ... ... ... ... ....Jerry, prepare the beam!!! ^ ^ If you read this and you're not Alien, then have a happy Monday! Or any day really! : D
One NPC for now. Mr Raven stuck in his Mr Tree..
His job will be, probably, to give you access to higher levels. If you are of relevant level/XP, the first thing he does, is say something about the next area, which he opens for you. Then he continues his shenanigans. He could have an entire story to tell you. But for now he's just here to showcase the new, simple, dialogue system. Mechanically speaking.. you only have to 'talk to' the NPC once, and then you exit the level. You don't have to wait for any dialogue lines. They're cosmetic. And no, I don't think I want to do the silly trrrrrrr animated text thing.. It can be fun if handled lightly, high speed reveal, subtle sound.. but it's probably very unnecessary here. ^ ^ |
About me
I'm a character animator, visual artist, game dev, and music composer. I like to doodle, write, experiment, and plan my next big thing. I love tech that inspires and enables art. I have a formal background in music composition. And I like to walk around the world and see things up close. Archives
September 2021
|