splaffinator

Is this thing on? (+ new game prototypes)

Hey everyone. It's been a minute, huh? In case you forgot you were subscribed, this is @splaffinator, the gamedev that was making the otter platformer.

I ducked out right before a very weird time for the world, and in light of that, I hope you're doing alright. I am doing good! I still have the gamedev job I started the pandemic with, and have been promoted twice in the interim, which is very nice. For the first ti...

Big life update & pausing pledges for a bit

Hey everyone!! Sorry that I was quiet this month - a lot of real life stuff has been happening to me recently, and I've needed a lot of time to process it. But now my life is heading in a new (good!!) direction, and I want to be transparent about what's going on, since it impacts you guys and the schedule of what I'm doing on here.

So... at the behest of a furry friend, at the start of February I took a vacation to Austin to clear my head a bit... and through a series of connections and...

Gone Fishing

Hey everyone! Here's a video of me chasing down a new gameplay element I've been working on: the ever-elusive golden fish. One of the missions in Lighthouse Rock will involve catching a few of them for a fisherman.

These guys kind of work like the egg thieves from Spyro: they idle around until you come too close, at which point they start zipping along a predetermined closed path. If you can anticipate their movement for long enough, you'll eventually catch up and colle...

Lighthouse Art

Hey everyone - happy first update of 2020, and a special welcome to everyone who joined recently!! I post development updates every two weeks or so, and right now I'm working on modeling and implementing Lighthouse Rock, the game's demo level.

These past few weeks, I've been working mostly on environment art, slowly but surely locking down the level visually and getting everything textured / connected. Some of the big areas of focus were the new lighthouse interior (shown at the beginni...

Lighthouse Art & Thanks

Hey everyone, happy holidays and almost-new year! I've mostly been trying to take it easy, but in spite of myself I started working on some art for the lighthouse plateau - check out the gifs above. One of the demo missions has you climbing up the lighthouse (the path is around back) to get the lamp turned back on.

As you can see, I also added some seagulls! They fly around and every-so-often decide to perch on random spots I designate in the scene. They don't really do anything, but th...

Badges, Cutscenes, and Dialogue

Hey everyone!! These past few weeks, I've been integrating many of the game's core systems — characters, dialogue, cutscenes, collectibles, and save data — into a single, cohesive whole that's really starting to look like the intended play experience. Whoa!!

The obvious fun part of this: you can now earn badges, the game's main collectible. Characters can give them to you during dialogue, and also tell whether or not you've collected them (to give context-sensitive ...

Lighthouse Rock

Hey everyone!! Here's a video of me running around in the blockout for Lighthouse Rock, the new demo level I've been working on. For the past few weeks I've been designing this area and starting to populate it with unique gameplay elements, including rolling logs, geysers, boulders, and a fun swivel cannon.

All of this is still pretty heavy WIP - there are holes in the blockout and some missing effects / sounds (the rocks will not beep when you hit them lol) - but this should get across...

Back to the Otter

Hey everyone!! This is going to be a longer update about the state of the game / the upcoming demo, so please take some time to read through it. In the interest of releasing something worthwhile as soon as possible, I'm changing my game plan a little and want to make sure you all know what's going on.

So - before I took that break for Halloween stuff, I was still plugging away at designing and modeling the tutorial level. Here's some updated shots from it, including a cool new vertex-pa...

Spellbound

The Halloween minigame is out - you can play the final version here!

Thanks so much to everyone who tried out the prototype last week and gave their feedback! This release version has better / more telegraphed hitboxes for shelving, a new tutorial sequence, some bugfixes / magic number adjustments, and completed art and audio.

I'm going to take a break for a few days, and then it'll be back to your reg...

Halloween Prototype

So I have a surprise for you guys!! In the spirit of Halloween, I've been working on a minigame where you play as a werewolf who has to organize a library of spellbooks. It's called Spellbound, and the prototype is playable RIGHT NOW!

You can try it here - the password is spookypatronage. (Please be nice and don't publicly share this link / password / anything from the game;...

Talking to Russell

Hey everyone!! These past few weeks, I've been working on Russell (the game's first NPC) as well as the dialogue system that lets you talk to him! Here's a video showing off his model, some animations, and the way that dialogue looks / sounds so far.

At the end of the video, I also show off the game's pause menu, which takes the form of the field journal that Russell gives you. Most of the pages are still blank, but I've been working on the Options page first (which is ...

Crab Battle

Hey everyone!! Here's a video that shows off some of the stuff I've been working on recently — the game's first enemy, some coconuts you can bat around, and the main area of the demo level. (also, it should be nice to finally see the game in slightly higher quality)

A lot of this is still WIP (some missing models / SFX) but should get the idea across. You can also flip the crab right-side-up again if you hit it while it's upside down, which I forgot to show in the video. It's a funny ...

Welcome

Hey everyone, thanks so much for pledging!! This has gotten off to a really great start, and I'm so happy to have you all along. If you're not already in the Discord, make sure you get in there, since it's where most of the cool stuff is happening.

I just wanted to make a quick first post outlining what you all can expect from me in the coming months. My main focus right now is a playable demo of the game's tutorial level. It's still a few months away (lots of work to do), but I'll be p...