Here's some work on the underground area that'll be near the beginning of the game. Right now this is just 1 block type and 1 decoration, and it already looks cool! We'll keep you posted as we add more.
2020-04-11 19:36:43 +0000 UTC View Post
I spent the past few days making water! It came out way better than I expected and I'm not sure if I've seen the same graphic technique anywhere, so I thought it'd be fun to write about the technical stuff behind it.
---
The first trick is a shader that applies a gradient to every object, based on how far underneath the water's surface each point is. The gradient has a sharp white line at the top, and then soft blue-to-black under it. This means you can still see the shape of anything immediately under the water's surface, but there's no texturing or shading at all.
The second layer is the water itself, just rendered as mostly a flat plane (with a simple diagonal sine wave offset to add the waves). It's two copies of the same texture, at different opacities and moving in different directions. This is blended additively over the rest of the scene, which gives it the nice soft edges around underwater objects.
The water texture itself was grabbed from here (Berserkitty on Deviantart) with a few palette changes. I'll make a few other water textures later for different kinds, but this was a great one to start with!
The splashes are probably the most complicated part. The main component is a splash texture that gets applied to a partial cylinder, which "falls over" and spreads out. I spawn a bunch in different directions for a circular splash, or at limited angles for a directional one. These are all blended additively too.
Splashes also have a "foam" effect that's a bunch of particles that fade out, and the particle graphic itself is actually 3 dots per particle to save on a bit of processing. There's another set of particles that have only 1 dot as the graphic, follow gravity, and make a small animated splash when they hit the water.
The ripples are pretty simple: they're just a small crescent graphic that I spawn at a few random angles per ripple, so they're randomized/"broken" a bit. Characters make ripples a few times per second when they're in the water, and splashes make bigger ones.
I think that's basically everything. If you use some variant of this for your own game, make sure to tell me about it! Things are really rough in the world right now, but if you can afford it, you should consider subscribing to us here. It'd be a big help!
Links:
Gifs:
Pictures:
---
Here's a new friend(?), the Squirpent! It throws acorns at you to mess up your jumps, and it doesn't care about strawberries. Cleru needs to be pretty strict to get it to behave!
We've been working on this for quite a few days but it's (mostly) done now. This should hopefully be a pretty versatile critter to spice up platforming sections. It's been really hard making enemies in a non-violent game since they all need to react in logical ways to everything, you can't just make them explode when they hit 0 HP. But, I hope that extra effort shows!
2020-03-15 22:57:59 +0000 UTC View PostHello again! Part 1 is here, where I talked about action game boss design. This time I'll be talking about powerups in exploration-focused games, why I think the usual approach isn't perfect, and why I'm going in a slightly different direction for Sunfluffs.
First, when I say "exploration game", I mean any game where the primary way to make progress is by exploring to find new areas and items. People often call this "Metroidvania", but genre names based solely on comparisons to existing games have always felt weird to me, plus it leaves out a huge chunk of games that are exploration-focused but not like either of those games - the things I'll talk about even apply to games like Zelda, but not quite as strongly.
So, if you explore in a game, obviously it means you need to find new powerups! And those powerups should obviously help you explore further, so there's a really nice gameplay loop of remembering previous areas and thinking about where you can get to now. That part's basically set in stone.
What I find weird is that every game I can think of has every powerup be permanent, lasting for the entire rest of your playthrough. This obviously works and there's plenty of really good games with that formula! But I've always been thinking about some of the downsides, and why that was making it really difficult to design the kind of game that I wanted Sunfluffs to be.
If an item is permanent, then every later area needs to assume the player has it. If it's a damage upgrade that also opens a new type of door or solves a new kind of puzzle (like Metroid beams), that's easy to account for by just giving enemies more HP in areas past it, so that's fine, but a bit simple. If there's a bunch of items that also double as entirely new combat moves, it means the combat complexity needs to go way up as you get more, which might be overwhelming for some players. And the main thing I wanted to talk about, new mobility options, gets really messy when you have more than a few...
Here's an example of a really simple powerup. Use the item to charge up a jump that goes higher than a normal one! It's intuitive to understand, it's easy to use, and... it means every single ledge for the entire rest of the game needs to be 3 tiles higher, if I want it to be hard to reach. If I give a new movement powerup later that also adds a few tiles to your jump range in a different way (like a teleport, or a grapple), then any ledge needs to be 3 tiles higher to ensure players can't get to it until they have the new one, because you can always use the super jump boots and the new powerup. This gets really out-of-hand, really quickly.
Most games seem to counteract this in a few different ways... sometimes your starting movement sucks, in order to have enough room to stack 4 or 5 movement powerups on top of it without it going out of control. Often they'll save the big movement powerups all for the end, so there's nothing left to "break". A lot of the powerups in the middle of a game end up being a bit "lock and key", where the new item only works on specially-placed objects, or otherwise limiting where you can use them. In my game though, I want almost everything to be new movement options though, since they're awesome!
So what I'm doing in Sunfluffs is simple - you don't keep the items permanently. You explore a big map, collect 4 or 5 cool powerups, fight some bosses, and end on a huge climactic encounter that makes use of all of them! And then that level is entirely cleared out, and you start with no items in the next level... where you can find a new set of powerful movement items, with no overlap. This gives me a lot of room to make Cleru's basic movement be somewhat powerful without cutting into the "design space" of the powerups, and it means you can find extremely powerful items early in the game! I think it'll help make stages feel more distinct from each other as well, since you have a different moveset in each one.
Unfortunately since this is all really high-level stuff, I can't actually be certain that it'll all work out as good as it is in my head until I make way more areas and items. It's certainly freed me up to create cool movement powerups though, without needing to put them exclusively in the last few hours of the game! It means the areas aren't linked to each other as much as other exploration games, which is probably a downside, but that's a hit I'm willing to take. (It does mean less chance of people getting stuck, since there's a smaller "active area" to search, though.)
---
This was probably a bit rambly! The short version is: the more often you reset a player's powerup state to zero, the cooler the powerups you can give them early on. (This applies to other genres too! Copy Kitty sets you to near-zero at the start of every stage for similar reasons.) I'm sure it's much trickier to find a balance for how often to reset powerups in exploration games compared to others, but I just find it strange how many of them default to "never". You should always question these things!
Does anyone know anything that follows a similar format to what I described, or do you have any suggestions for what I should write about later? Leave a comment! I'm curious what people think about these kinds of articles.
Links:
Previously: Part 1
Every once in a while, a mysterious object falls from the sky... a Shooting Star! These always land in places that are hard to get to.
Cleru and most of the other Sunfluffs live in a floating city, but they often travel down to the surface each day just to hunt these rare items down! When someone finds one, they can pop it open, and the star transforms into a Trinket!
Trinkets are bound to whoever opens the capsule, and won't work for anyone else. People often trade them around before opening them though, since each Shooting Star has a unique design that lets you guess at its contents!
Trinkets follow the same magic rule as the rest of the world: Sunfluffs can only use it during the daytime, and Moonfloofs can only use it at night. If it's the wrong time of day, then it reverts to its inert star shape.
In the next part of this series, we'll talk about Floof magic! See you then!
2020-02-18 23:06:36 +0000 UTC View Post
If you've played Copy Kitty or seen any of our other works in Zoincailla, you're probably familiar with how magic works there... but here it's completely different!
Every Sunfluff has a single magic Trick they can do! Here's some examples:
...and Cleru can pull fruit out of any container, as long as nobody can prove the fruit wasn't just there to begin with. All the Tricks only work during the daytime, and they're kind of rubbish in general, but the fluffs don't mind!
Each Trick is represented by a card, which is just a handy way to identify yourself and your magic (the card itself isn't magical or anything). It's pretty common to exchange cards as a greeting to get a conversation going. Cleru has the Three of Berries, and other fluffs can have cards from a huge variety of different suits.
There's a lot more to say about the magic of this world, but we'll have to save that for next time. Make sure to leave a comment about anything you think we should cover later!
Next: Part 2
2020-02-12 23:11:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Meet Moofle the Moonfloof! Cleru always stops to say hi when walking through the sheep village. Just like Sunfluff magic only works during the day, a Moonfloof's magic wool only takes effect at night... but it still looks pretty no matter what!
And speaking of which, our next post will be about magic. See you then!
2020-02-09 23:10:27 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's a few ways that the Furlong messed up during development. The flat-face one actually took 6 hours to fix and was unbelievably frustrating! (But in hindsight, that's one of the funniest things to get stuck on...)
2020-01-30 03:34:55 +0000 UTC View Post
(No sound, about 1 minute long)
This is basically the best critter I've ever made! This started at a much smaller scale but I decided to go all-out with it, which is why it took so long. Make sure to leave a comment!
2020-01-21 17:50:29 +0000 UTC View Post
This is a Bedhead! It sleeps in inconvenient locations and you need to figure out how to get it to move... usually by just pelting it with strawberries until it picks somewhere else to sleep.
I wanted to get this posted by the end of the year so I didn't get everything done that I wanted to, but I'll be showing more soon!
2019-12-31 21:15:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Full comic link: http://entanma.com/nhimor-patronsonly/day47.html
The current plot arc started here, about 5 pages ago. The index page is here.
If it's not obvious from the URL, don't share this anywhere! The public version will be posted on December 23rd, at the main site.
2019-12-17 19:55:45 +0000 UTC View Post
You can put a strawberry on the gear and it delivers it to the other side as it rotates! I've done a bunch of placeholder/layout work for this environment but this is the only screenshottable thing so far.
2019-12-16 21:25:16 +0000 UTC View Post
The top picture is Raibys's concept art, and the bottom picture is my (Azure's) EXTREMELY early progress on it. Most of my time so far was spent on the tiling code - that screenshot is made from literally 1 block type placed on a grid, but it automatically connects them all together and adds the edge trim and stuff. Today I'll be adding the pillars/gears or working on the back wall, and eventually I'll need to figure out how to connect it into a cylinder!
Until now I've only felt comfortable showing off "mostly finished" stuff, but I thought it'd be cool to show really early WIP things too, so you can see how things evolve over time. If anyone has any ideas for objects or critters that would be cool in this environment, tell us in the comments!
2019-12-10 16:12:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Full comic link: http://entanma.com/nhimor-patronsonly/day46.html
The current plot arc started here, about 5 pages ago. The index page is here.
If it's not obvious from the URL, don't share this anywhere! The public version will be posted on December 8th, at the main site.
2019-12-04 21:40:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Full comic link: http://entanma.com/nhimor-patronsonly/day45.html
It's been so long since the last post, so if you need a refresher, the current plot arc started here, about 5 pages ago. The index page is here.
If it's not obvious from the URL, don't share this anywhere! The public version will be posted on November 1st, at the main site.
2019-10-24 21:55:50 +0000 UTC View PostIt's been about a year since the last Copy Kitty update. This one won't be huge, but there's been things that have been bugging me and I want to take a week or so to fix them. It's aimed mostly at "replayable content" like speedruns and the level editor, without any new bosses or anything. Here's the tentative change log:
Is there anything else people wanna see for a small update? I'm not aiming to fix every bug, since that's impossible, but if there's any big ones I missed then let me know! I'm also looking for more potential level editor features that would be easy to add.
Leave any comments below!
2019-10-21 21:37:01 +0000 UTC View Post
After befriending a critter, you can pick what to do with it! Each critter has its own set of actions. Give fruit to lots of things so you can see what they all do!
Eventually, friendly NPCs will have a similar system where you can hug them, give them food, or show them different items to see what they say.
2019-10-21 19:08:12 +0000 UTC View Post
The two of us have been going through some REALLY rough times lately, and we've felt very unsafe, so we haven't had time or energy to work on anything. If you follow us on twitter or discord you probably know at least some of what's happened, but I don't want to get into details because it's depressing.
We probably have it all resolved now, though. The situation isn't ideal but we'll be flying somewhere safe tomorrow morning. (Edit: we're there!)
In the middle of all this garbage, I channeled some of that energy to make the HP system (happy points), where taking too much damage will make Cleru sad but there's no way to actually die or lose progress. Feed or hug something to cheer up!
This is also the first video with sound but a lot of it is work-in-progress.
2019-10-17 23:11:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello! Me and Raibys have been in a slump lately so I wanted to do something easy and fun. I modelled a basic shirt for Cleru (and NPCs) where I can swap out the textures really easily, and it can even be any body/sleeve length since it supports transparent pixels! Over on twitter I asked people to give me some shirt suggestions, and here's all the one ones I made so far... with some being more serious than others.
2019-08-15 22:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
It's a new powerup! It doesn't actually do very much but it would be mean if Cleru had to walk around in the rain without an umbrella.
I don't know what to call it though, does anyone have any suggestions?
2019-07-27 23:14:27 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's a bunch of screenshots for some minor stuff that doesn't need its own full post. We've both been busy so there haven't been any real updates lately. Hopefully relatively soon we'll have more than one environment to show off!
2019-06-20 03:08:22 +0000 UTC View Post
This cutie boofer is named Rus. She somehow got a hold of the Storm Collar and can woof tornados now! How will Cleru ever tame such a ferocious creature?!
2019-06-04 22:56:13 +0000 UTC View Post
The model and animations aren't entirely done yet, but it's been so long since the last post that I figured you'd appreciate a little preview! More dog content soon!
2019-05-23 03:23:57 +0000 UTC View PostHere's something different! I usually go on game design ramblings in the Discord room, but that's easy to miss and I figured it'd be cool to have a more permanent place to put them. Some of these will be about stuff I did in Copy Kitty and other ones will be random musings about unrelated games.
For this one I'll be talking about Yoggvals! Or more generally, boss fundamentals. Yoggval is a recurring midboss in Copy Kitty, which shows up about 5 times throughout the game (and an upgraded hard-mode version of each). Each one has the same template - a dash move, a stomp move, and a projectile - but they all have vastly different implementations of that template.
Here's a video of the very first one in the game. (Patreon doesn't let me embed videos and it doesn't even let me use a clickable image thumbnail, so it needs to be a text link. The video's around 1 minute long.)
First off, the single most important advice for anyone making any action game: the more the player has to move around, the more fun it is. If you're dashing all around the screen and attacking from all angles, it feels awesome even if the battle's easy! Meanwhile if you're planted in the middle of the screen and hitting the guard button whenever something's close to you, it gets old pretty quick, even if you still need to aim your shots or react to things. (Speaking very generally of course. There's exceptions to both sides, but they're uncommon.)
So why'd I pick that set of 3 moves (dash/stomp/projectile) as the basis for the recurring boss? Because it's the simplest way to make players move a lot! If the boss dashes then you need to jump, and if the boss stomps then you need to run. The projectile attack serves as a "modifier" to the next attack, forcing you into a different position so you can't always run/jump from the same part of the screen, and sometimes forcing you into a corner where your options are limited.
Re-read that last paragraph if you didn't quite process it, since it's super important! Each attack has a very specific purpose, and there's no overlap between them.
Here's a later Yoggval battle that's a little more complex. (Also about 1 minute long.)
The main dynamic in this one is jumping between the middle platform and the side platforms. If you're in the middle and the boss stomps, you need to jump to the sides... and if you're on the side when the boss dashes, you need to jump back to the middle. The magnet projectile modifies the next attack by adding a tiny bit of unpredictability, requiring a little more precision and preventing you from doing the exact same movements each time.
All of this comes pretty naturally once you've seen the boss go through a few cycles, since each individual attack is really simple and you've fought other Yoggvals before! You don't really need to "memorize the boss's moveset", it's all about figuring out how to dodge each attack in slightly different situations (different starting platform, and different magnet positions).
I focused on short bosses here, since it's super important to have strong fundamentals if people will only have a few minutes to figure it out before they either win or lose. If it's a big important boss where the focus is more on the spectacle than the mechanics, there can be attacks that "just look cool" without serving much of a design purpose, but remember to have strong fundamentals too!
-
Summary: Focus on giving your boss a small set of attacks that each make the player move in a different way. It'll automatically lead to some emergent situations where the same attack gets dodged differently depending on what stuff came before it! Try to make sure the entire arena gets used, whether it's complex terrain that affects the battle or simply to make the player get cornered every once in a while.
-
I could talk about this for ages, and point to a bunch of other examples in a lot of different games or talk about how it applies to other genres, but I want to keep this first article pretty short. Next time you're playing a cool action game, pay attention to what it's doing to get you to move a lot, and see if it's following my guidelines here!
Any questions about this, or any suggestions for what I should write about later? Leave a comment below! I wanna know how much interest there is for these articles, since it's a lot different from the usual content here.
Links:
