Suzy Cube Update: February 26, 2016 It was all about gussying Suzy up again this week. In fact, I've completed skybox and decoration work on all World 1 levels! Work still continues on tightening things up, game play wise, throughout World 1 as well. I ripped out a whole challenge from Level 1-4 and replaced it with a similar but way less error prone version of the challenge. On Level 1-3 (the desert one) I decided to replace all the early Heart hats (let Suzy take 1 point of damage without dying) with Double Jump hats. Originally, I gave players the Double Jump hat only a third of the way through the level and forced them to use it to proceed. Now, however, players have two opportunities to get the power-up before getting to the gating challenge which will, hopefully, allow players to experiment more with the ability and give them more opportunity to discover how it works. With all the decoration work done in time for GDC, I'm going to shift over to more subtle stuff, bug fixing etc. See you all next week!
This is really cool platform game. It sounds to be more interesting because there's a lot of great game features for this Suzy cube.
Suzy Cube Update: March 4, 2016 So, I surprised even myself this week... Most of it was spent on little bug fixes and working on a new title screen... (not necessarily what I'll go with, but needed something nice for GDC) But then something happened! What happened is that, ok, hold on, let me back up a bit... So, the title screen you see up there, when in motion, has the little Skull dude walking around and the camera subtly drifting to give a little sense of motion and depth... And that drifting is key! After a couple of failed attempts at either using one of my existing scripts or writing a simple ease-in-out motion solution, I still wasn't getting the results I was looking for. I was already making use of a simple position randomization script (which comes from the Bee enemy) but all my attempts to smooth the camera's motion from point to point just wasn't doing it for me. Everything I tried just looked like a camera floating from point to point, the direction changes were too obvious and the ease-in-out motion just made for this awkward stop and go. I realised that what I really wanted was for the camera to float around as if attracted to the target point using acceleration and velocity. Long story short, by the time I was done writing the script, I had, inadvertently, written a very simple spring solver! I ended up making a little setup to play with and, by cranking up the values, I was able to create this effect: The cube is linked to the sphere using the script. By turning up the max acceleration, tension factor and max velocity, I was able to create this taut spring kind of motion. Which got me thinking... I never bothered to animate the buns on Suzy's head since I always figured they would be better off being handled dynamically. The truth is, I had long given up on bothering to set it up, but when I saw my spring in motion, I realized I was halfway there! So I got to work on a proof of concept proxy test. Needless to say, I got pretty psyched! Other than some weird alignment issues (which I ended up fixing today) I had the makings of some pretty fun looking dynamic hair buns. The set up is actually pretty straightforward and simply demanded that I write one other new script, a custom Look At script that could handle passing in an object to rotate, a target, an up vector reference transform and a Vector3 to handle adjusting the object's "at rest" rotation. The script is, otherwise, just a good old Unity LookAt() function call. The basic idea is that I've got two target objects (blue circles) parented to the head (so they follow it along). Two look at targets (green diamonds) which the hair buns point to using my look at script. Finally, the green targets are linked to the blue circles using the spring motion script so that as the head moves, the green targets get dragged around in a springy fashion. Since the hair buns are set to always point at the green targets, they end up getting dragged around as well. The final effect is nice and bouncy! It's subtle given the low framerate of the animated gif, but man I love the life it brings to the character! I'm leaving for GDC in just over a week, so from now on it's no more risky detours, just concentrating on putting Suzy's best (nonexistent) foot forward. See you next week! P.S. The Unity update I installed this morning fixed the issue I was having with using my controller on iOS.. YAY!! Just in time for the show!
My goodness! Your progress updates are a blast to catch up on! It's looking AMAZING. If you ever need TestFlight folks, I'm all over it!
Thanks for the kind words! Step one will be setting up Testflight for a smaller group of folks, but yes, the plan is to eventually invite a wider range of testers so I'll definitely be grabbing names from this thread!
Suzy Cube Update: March 11, 2016 Not much of an update this week, cuz I'm going to GDC! I played it safe this week and only tackled the simplest of the easiest to fix bugs and little cosmetic issues. Nothing really worth mentioning, really. Controller support still isn't back up to one hundred percent, unfortunately, but I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out in due time when I get back from the conference. So, speaking of that! The Game Developers Conference starts on Monday and I'll be flying out to San Francisco this Sunday! I'm pretty exciterrified, but I'm sure I'll have a great time, meet awesome folks and learn a ton! Will I even be able to sleep this weekend!? So, one last time, if you are going to be in the area and would like to meet, swap cards and get to try Suzy Cube first hand, let me know over Twitter (@louardongames) which I should be able to check at least once a day while down there. FYI, unless something awful or awesome keeps me from attending, I plan to partake in the Touch Arcade Sticker Swap while in San Fran. That's probably a good place to catch me if you are into hanging out with mobile developers and checking out cool games! You can find info on the sticker swap here: http://toucharcade.com/2016/02/26/were-going-to-gdc/ Finally, I hope I'll take the time to post some updates on my blog while at the conference, I want to share the experience with you, but I won't promise anything since time has a way of getting away from me at these sorts of event. I will try to kick myself in the butt to do it, though! In case you want to check that out, you can get to my blog here: http://louardongames.blogspot.com/search/label/GDC2016 Well, on that note, wish me luck! I'll be resuming regular updates when I get back. See you then!
looks like just my thing! Appreciate there's still a lot of work to do, but hope you'll consider Apple TV when the eventually release come around.
This is gonna be something else! # Can't wait! When it's time, add me to help test it! TestFlight ready!
I loved seeing the gameplay from GDC. I hate to have to wait a year to play. On the top of my "gotta have it" list
I'm not into platformer games normally. But after I saw the TA video from GDC and now read your updates here, I'm really looking forward to it. You put a lot of thought and love into everything it seems. I really like that. And it surely looks great and like a lot of fun. Looking forward to more updates and insights.
WOW! Thanks for the kind words, everybody! It's the fuel in my development tank! I want to put the work in and make sure I deliver a game I'm proud of and that you will all, hopefully, enjoy!
Suzy Cube Update: April 1, 2016 Hey, hey! What's up everybody!? I'm back from GDC and my week off to recover. For those who are curious, you can check out my day-to-day write up of the conference here: http://louardongames.blogspot.com/search/label/GDC2016 The real highlight, though, is this excellent write up I got from Touch Arcade: http://toucharcade.com/2016/03/18/gdc-2016-suzy-cube-is-a-true-3d-platformer-for-touchscreens-and-our-favorite-game-of-gdc/ He said FAVOURITE!!! Speaking of good press, I also did an interview over Skype this Monday with Trevor from Apple 'n' Apps which you can find here: http://applenapps.com/special-event/gdc-2016-upcoming-suzy-cube-mario-ios.html#.Vv6OtRMrJ24 It also includes updated footage of Level 1-4 from the GDC build of the game! Ok, so with all the good buzz-a-buzzin' I should probably get back to working on the game, right!? To that end, I've been working on the paper design for level 5-3 and putting together some of the functionality I'll need to build out the level's unique feel and gameplay. I've been working on a few variations of flower themed platforms including, but not limited to, rotating flowers and swinging flowers on bendy stems. I also wrote a script which allows me to create teeter-totter style behaviours either along one, or two axes. These should open up some interesting gameplay possibilities both for Level 5-3 and others. To go with the flower theme, I've also started work on a new variation on the bee enemy. These slightly... um... more rotund bumblebees will act a little differently than the regular bees. Stay tuned for more info and footage of them as I implement their functionality. Well, that's it for this week's update. I should have a lot more of level 5-3 to show you next week. See you then!
Suzy Cube Update: April 8, 2016 Flowers and bees and fresh air, oh my! I've been building out the design of Level 5-3 this week. It's coming along well but it isn't quite done yet. The level incorporates all the different flower platforms I mentioned in last week's update. The teeter totters didn't make it into the level after all, which is fine. If it feels like I would have to shoehorn them in, I'd much rather just save them for a different level where I can really explore their use to its fullest. Since this is the first level I've worked on so far which is destined for the game's final world, I've allowed myself to go a little tougher with the challenges. I don't think it's going to be a punishingly hard stage, or anything, but rather one that will require a good feel for Suzy's jumps to complete unscathed. As always, though, there are plenty of checkpoints. You know, because I'm a nice guy! Also, as mentioned last week, I've got the bumblebee enemies all up and working. I actually did most of it last friday after writing the update. In trying to get the wing buzzing sounds to better match the animations, I ended up writing a little script for manipulating sound sources allowing me to change the pitch and volume of the buzzing based on trigger events in the animations. Very useful! Where the regular bee enemies, sort-of, dive bomb little Suzy, the big and heavy bumblebees meander around lazily until she gets under them and then, SLAM! So don't get caught under these heavy hitters! Ok, I'm gonna see what I can do about wrapping up work on the level before the weekend. See you all next time!
Oh my gosh. I have had so many things going on in my life lately, that I haven't been able to pay much attention to all the 'new' posts. Well.... I am so glad I picked somehow came across this thread! This game looks amazing! Now that be seen it, it is now ok to speed up development so I can play it sooner. He he! Kidding! Is 'Suzy Cube' a play on words; 'Susie Q' ??? I think I might remember that as a kid? Maybe..... Looks fun.
Suzy Cube Update: April 22, 2016 Sorry about missing last week's update, folks. I was out of country on a little vacation! I would feel bad about it, but I got to watch a leatherback sea turtle lay eggs... So... Too bad? Seeing as we only got in a couple days ago, I've only been back at my desk for about a day and a half, so today's update is going to be a short one. Well, Isn't That Special? What I decided to do with these last couple of days was to hook up functionality for the Special World!!! OOOH!!! The idea behind the special world is to reward dedicated players by awarding them some extra content for finding all the stars in the game. The Wrong Way First, I want to explain what my original plan was for unlocking the special world. Initially, I intended to simply unlock access to the special world once a player had found all of the stars in the regular levels. Discussing this with friends back at GDC, it was pointed out to me that this lacked discoverability as a player would have to have decided, ahead of time, to set out to find all the stars in order to even know there was a reward for doing so. The Right-er Way The suggestion that came out of this conversation was to split the Special World stages up to be awarded in chunks. So, that's what I've implemented. Now, instead of gaining access to the Special World by finding all the stars, you gain access to the Special World by finding all the stars in a single World. Finding all the stars in each World will unlock one of the locked sets you see in the screenshot above. But at What Cost!? So what are the Special World Stages and won't this extra content set the project back by several months? To answer the second question first... um... hopefully not? How? That's related to the first question. In 'good-ol' Super Mario 3D Land fashion, all of these stages will be remixed versions of stages from the regular game but incorporating new paths, hazards and challenges. Being aimed at the most hardcore players also means that I won't have to rely on as much new user testing to tune their difficulty, allowing me to rely much more on my own experience and that of my more seasoned testers. All of this should make the Special World Stages much faster to produce than fresh new ones. These stages will really be aimed at players looking for a greater challenge! And with that, I say bye bye for now. I'm off to try and tackle some weird bugs I've been having with controller support in the menus. See you all next week!
Suzy Cube Update: April 29, 2016 'Sup folks! I spent the first bit of the week doing boring stuff. I worked on some bugs and flow in the level select screen for instance but I still haven't figured out why my iOS controller loses selection focus! I'm going to have to figure that out at some point! I also took care of a couple bugs that could make boss fights un-beatable if you interrupted certain boss sequences. I wanted to make sure I addressed these before starting work on the game's final level. WAIT! before any of you get too excited, let me remind you that I am NOT designing the levels in order and this does not mean I've finished work on the rest of the game's levels! That being said, I did some work on the boss fight itself, working out the right attack sequences etc. I'm not 100% happy with it yet but I think it's in a good state, and I plan to focus on the level leading up to the fight next week. I also worked on lava themed props to go in the level. Some are reskins, some are new. The volcano uses a combination of scrolling UVs and particles for the motion. I've also modeled and rigged this little guy... It's going to fly around and spit fireballs at you. Should fit in nicely with the helling lava look! So, yep. That's what I've been up to and what I should continue to be up to into next week. I'm gonna get the little flying dude up and running and design a whole helling level for Suzy to brave on her way up to fight the final boss! I look forward to sharing that progress with all of you.
