Suzy Cube Update: July 29, 2016 I got to work on Suzy all week again!! Yay! It allowed me to make some significant progress on Level 4-B. It's a forest themed level all about the Ground Pound. The boss is even made of rock, making it impervious to regular head bopping. As part of making all the necessary parts needed for the level, I also made this nifty exploding block. It basically acts like a bomb without a fuse, instead needing a nearby explosion to set it off. This opens the door to some pretty great chain reaction possibilities! Now, as for next week, I really don't know what to tell you. I upgraded to Unity 5.4 last night and some stuff is now broken. Some of it is just annoying, like particle effects being coloured incorrectly, but some other problems might require some serious time to fix. One such problem is the fact that I need to re-bake all my levels since Unity upgraded to a newer version of Enlighten (the lighting software they use). This would simply be annoying if not for the fact that I'm staring at a console full of errors relating to Enlighten failing to process my custom resizable blocks... Which, probably, make up about 99% of my level geometry. These blocks are built on a complex script I haven't touched in about a year. I do not look forward to trying to fix this issue! So, next week might be me telling you about completing work on Level 4-B or weeping about my broken project. Tune in next week to find out!
Suzy Cube Update: August 5, 2016 Had un-Suzy related work to do this week so I didn't dive into any long tasks. Last weekend, I got so obsessed with squashing all the bugs due to upgrading to Unity 5.4 that I ended up working myself into a bit of a dev frendzy. We had a really busy weekend but I still cracked open the laptop several times to tinker away at stuff. Probably because I knew I wouldn't get to work on the game this week. In the process I squashed every bug I could which was brought on by the upgrade and sent off bug reports to Unity for the ones I could fix myself. Otherwise, between little spurts of work over the weekend and some good hours put in on Monday and today, I was able to hit a handful of low hanging and longstanding issues. I fixed a bug with the double jump which could, on occasion, cause it to be unreliable. I finally fixed the Mummy Skull enemies so they can't come back from certain deaths. Used to be they would always come back to life even when they weren't supposed to, like say, after taking a rocket to the face. Fixing that bug also lead to me making improvements in the basic enemy script, so that's good. I fixed an eternally longstanding bug with what I call "step rotate platforms". These are objects which rotate in increments like these: Even after fixing the timing issues I had forever ago, I was left with these rare hitches caused by having to reset the platform's rotation at each revolution (more or less). Floating point imprecision was causing them to pop to the wrong angle for a frame every once in a while. I had implemented other fixes which made these occurrences much less frequent but could just not get rid of the problem. In the end I took a totally different approach. The old approach used to have an exposed value for setting the number of degrees to rotate per movement and dealt with each movement separately. This new approach has me defining not a number of degrees per rotation, but a number of rotations per full revolution. So for the L shaped platform above, instead of defining the movement as 90 deg turns, it's defined as 4 rotations per revolution. The other huge change to the implementation was to use an animation curve to define the entire revolution rather than only one rotation. By using the rotationTime and waitTime values as well as the number of desired rotations per revolution, I'm able to programmatically build an animation curve which represents a full 360 degree revolution. This is what the curve looks like for the L shaped platform. The bottom of the graph is 0 degrees and the top of the graph is 360. The horizontal axis represents time. This way, I can evaluate the curve as a function of the current time and get back the current angle of the platform. Since the curve is set to loop, I don't even have to worry about resetting it or anything! And by optionally multiplying the time by -1, I can even achieve counterclockwise rotation, easy! Finally, I also decided to rebuild my jump through platforms with two goals in mind: To improve the look of the animation and effects, and to better communicate the use of the platforms. Instead of the old texturing, which looked like an outline, I retextured the platform to fade out at the bottom to, hopefully, better convey the fact that you can pass through them from the bottom but can stand on the top. Well, that was my week. Nothing too flashy or big but I wanted to tackle stuff I could get done quickly enough. Next week I'm pouring all my energy into finishing the World 4 boss level! See you then!
Suzy Cube Update: August 12, 2016 Design of Level 4-B is DONE! What WHAT!? It would be better news but feedback from players has made it clear that Level 2-B, the World 2 boss level, is way too hard and needs an overhaul. It has a number of issues, not the least of which is the fact that you need to use the Double Jump power-up to defeat the boss, but it is neither found nor particularly useful in the rest of the level leading up to the boss. Level 4-B on the other hand has you using the Ground Pound the whole way up to the boss and even has a bit where you need to Ground Pound a switch to fire a rocket to proceed... Look like anything in the boss arena? I plan to do a "Lessons" post about it, which you'll be able to find here: http://louardongames.blogspot.com/search/label/Lessons%20from%20Suzy%20Cube Anywho! I made some more little changes to make life easier on players. I extended the glide time on the double jump just a tad. I made Suzy's collider just a bit shorter so she won't get stuck in 2m gaps anymore and I now pause the game time while Suzy's in a teleporter. As you can see, there's some animation involved in teleporting Suzy, and it used to be that players would be subjected to watching the timer run down while they were at the mercy of interdimensional travel... Well, no more! Now the game timer waits for Suzy to pop out the other end and for the player to regain control. This just seems 1000% more fair. I also tried my hand at some in-level instructional panels. My goal with these is to help less experimental players discover how to use the power-ups without simply giving it away. Here's the panel for how to get over the very wall onto which the panel is mounted. And here's the one for getting across the subsequent gap. What I've noticed is that some players simply don't experiment enough to discover the new ability but once they are told of its existence will loosen up and experiment with how to use it. My hope with the panels is that they'll simply seed the idea of double jumping in the mind of those players, prompting them to discover how to do it on their own. Which I hope they'll be able to do.. I mean... the game uses a single button... jump! Finally, though I'll be shelving it to rework Level 2-B, I've started on the design of Level 3-1.. my first non-boss level in months! So far, this is what I've got... This is how every Suzy level starts, as a bunch of scribbled notes and doodles. This is where I figure out what the level's key mechanisms are going to be and take note of things to remember while sketching out the actual blueprint. Though I have a grab bag list of things that would be cool to implement for the game, I'm at the point now where I only go through with the implementation if I know I'm going to need it for a forthcoming level. Which brings us to this cheeky little bugger... We've seen this kind of enemy before, it blocks Suzy's path and will even jump to stop her getting over, though it gives her an opportunity to get around! I think the blocky rolling animation really helps it fit within the Suzy Cube style, though and the behaviour is perfect for what I've got planned for Level 3-1. And that wraps up this update! P.S. I recently wrote a piece on "palate cleansers" in games and how they were handled differently in Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends, I invite you to have a look if you're into game design musings: http://louardongames.blogspot.com/2016/08/palate-cleansers-rayman-origins-vs.html
Suzy Cube Non Update Sorry for the lack of update this week, folks. Here's a consolation prize, a blog post I wrote comparing two boss levels in Suzy Cube. I focus on the idea of reinforcing behaviours in your players and compare a level in which I failed to do so properly and another which I feel does it much more successfully. You can find the piece here: http://louardongames.blogspot.ca/2016/08/lessons-from-suzy-cube-reinforcing.html
Suzy Cube Update: September 16, 2016 Where's everybody been!? Oh, wait! I'm the one who's not been around! I actually returned from a month long trip back to Canada late last week which is why I've missed a bunch of updates. If you want the longform about it, you can check it out on my blog: http://louardongames.blogspot.ca/2016/09/suzy-cube-update-friday-september-16.html If you just want the Cliff's Notes version here it is: 1. Western Canada is beautiful. 2. Dinos are rad. 3. I have cool friends. 4. It's hard to work around cool friends. 5. Some stuff about stuff and internet problems. There you go, all caught up! So what's new in Suzy land? I've reworked the level layout for the World 2 boss fight. I mentioned needing to do this in a recent blog post which you can read here: http://louardongames.blogspot.ca/2016/08/lessons-from-suzy-cube-reinforcing.html The gist of it being the fact that, although I require players to use the Double Jump power-up to defeat the boss, the level which lead up to the fight neither gave you access to the power-up nor was it very conducive to its use. So I've redesigned it to solve those problems. I've made the tower taller and spaced out the platforms to encourage and, even at times, require the use of the Double Jump power-up to proceed. This should serve as much better reinforcement of the behaviour required during the boss fight. I've decided to rethink the boss fight a little too. I initially thought I could simply add a new state for the boss wherein it would lean in a little giving you both a cue and an opportunity to double jump onto its head, but it's proven trickier than expected to get the height right. Too high and it doesn't look like an attack opportunity, too low and it's low enough that a normal jump allows Suzy to land a hit. I'll have to play around with it a bit more, I think. So, meanwhile, I've made great progress on Level 3-1, my first auto-scrolling level. *dodging pots, pans and pitchforks* Ya ya ya.. settle down!! I know such levels are much maligned, but, you know what!? I like 'em! Ok, I like 'em when they are well designed and not just a series of cheap gotchas and unseen deaths. Which is exactly why I'm interested in designing one of my own! It's a tricky balancing act, trying to get the scrolling speed and obstacle density right. It's proving challenging trying to keep it somewhere between meanderingly boring and turbo frustrating! This guy seems to be having a good time though... On that note, I should probably get back to it so next week's update can have a little more meat on its bones. Ciao for now!
Suzy Cube Update: September 23, 2016 More stuff this week! And GIFS! I wrapped up the design rough for Level 3-1. I mostly cut out many of the boring bits where Suzy would just have to wait for the camera and I reworked the "rest stops" as well. Oh, and put together a fun little find-the-star-amongst-the-gift-boxes bonus area too. The level still has a few little annoying bits that need addressing, but it's pretty much ready to add to the testing list for the next build. I've also started work on Level 2-1, a pyramid themed affair. I mostly worked on the intro area and laying some groundwork for some functionality, like this cool, room-to-room camera set up. Zelda would be proud! The great thing about having built a robust camera system is that I can set stuff like this up with very little fuss. You'll notice I'm even centering the camera on an averaged position between the room centre and Suzy rather than directly above the room centre allowing the camera to slightly follow Suzy's movements. I think it makes the shot look much more dynamic this way. I also spent some bits of time this week implementing some random stuff off my to-do list... Stuff like... A coin splash behaviour. Some boxes/enemies/hidden-whatevers can now award coins as an explosion of gold rather than awarding them outright. This forces Suzy to run around to grab them. Since, functionally, it's actually more annoying for the player to have to run around and pick up the coins, I'm hoping the trade off of the extra surprise and the sheer delight of seeing the coins burst out will be worth it. Games are about entertainment and engagement, and surprises are a great way to do that. Speaking of surprises... Random item box anyone!? These basically act just like a regular gift box but will award Suzy one of six random pickups. I love the idea that even I won't know what's going to come out of them and that a clutch item spawn could totally change the way the rest of a level plays out! And, finally, we have torches... Ok, the torches aren't new. But the ability to turn them on or off is! And the toggling behaviour being shown is too. You see, the switch is actually activating a hidden toggle trigger which will either turn the torches on or off based on it's current state. That's how a single switch can be used to either ignite the torches or snuff them out. Might come in handy for creating.. oh... I don't know.. pyramid-y puzzles??? There are a few things I was hoping to get done which I didn't, but, for the most part, I think it's been a successful week. Catch you all next Friday!
Wow, you have a lot of cool ideas in your game. The camera looks awesome as well as the animation. I will continue to follow your progress. Thanks
Suzy Cube Update: September 30, 2016 Sorry about the late update, but Ive been having internet woes again. After my update last week, I started work on a new enemy type which I finished up on Monday. I needed a simple behaviour that wouldnt be ground dependant and could be used to keep the player moving. The result? This hot little number It simply chases Suzy relentlessly and wont even stop for stuff like walls! Most of my week afterwards was spent on Level 2-1, the pyramid themed underground level I started last week. As I started designing the level, which plays a bit like an old Zelda dungeon, I was placing corridors between all of the rooms. I quickly realized these corridors were adding nothing at all to the experience, so I cut most of them out so that every room change brings something to the level, be it a puzzle or a hazard or, you know SOMETHING! By the same token, I also cut out a lot of the empty space in the starting area and made the pyramid smaller. Now, I plan to add a bunch of decoration here when I get around to polishing the level, sure, but as Ill likely be hiding some coins or items around this part of the level for curious players, I also didnt want it to be so vast and boring. Ive said it a million times: Cutting shitty things out of your game makes it better than adding good things. On that note.. thats it! Ive got a little more work to do on the level and then I start on the next one. See you next week!
Suzy Cube Update: October 7, 2016 Still no internet.. posting from neighbour's WiFi again... Ok, so, I know I was supposed to work on Level 4-1 but I got... uh... distracted... Everything started out fine. I knew I wanted to make Level 1-4 the introduction to the Ground Pound power-up and that one thing I wanted to add to showcase it was a new enemy based on the Bullies from Mario 64/3D World. I mean.. I got pretty far. Here is the big guy modeled, textured and even rigged and ready to animate! I just never really got around to that part... or the implementation part... I had a couple of flights of fancy which derailed my work. One was a shockwave hazard that was just so easy to model and implement that I just said "F-it!" and did it.. I figure these will be a nice opportunity to use the shockwave outside of boss battles. The other flight of fancy will have more considerable consequences, and flight of fancy might not be quite accurate in this case. For months now I've been saying that if I were to add sprinting to Suzy Cube it would have to be done without buttons. I had an idea of how I would want the behaviour to work but this week, I found myself really thinking about how I would implement it and as the solutions came to me I just got obsessed and went ahead and did it. So after initial implementation, animation work, scrapped animation and reanimation I ended up with what you see in the GIF. The way it works is simple enough, if Suzy maintains top speed for X seconds (currently 2) she will flip to sprint mode until her speed drops again from either stopping or turning too quickly. While sprinting, she runs faster (duh!), jumps a little higher (with a somersault!) and her handling gets a little slipperier. The idea behind adding the sprint (ya, why, Louard!?) was to give expert players something to master over noobs. It's tricky to maintain a sprint and it should allow better players to complete levels more quickly and deftly than newer players. This has the potential of having a profound effect on certain levels, so much playtesting will be needed to get it just right, of course! Otherwise it's been little under-the-hood stuff. Next week? Well, I would love to say I'll get the Skull Bully all done and in game and start work on Level 4-1 buuuut... I kinda took a bunch of notes on camera improvements last night and I might just tackle those first. Is it procrastination if your distraction is still work?
This thread is such a lovely devlog. Your game looks fantastic (I've said this before a few times) and it's really cool to see you put your thoughts down for everyone to see. The sprint idea I think is really really cool, and it definitely achieves what you're going for.
Suzy Cube Update: October 14, 2016 Yep... still on the neighbour's WiFi... Monday was a writeoff (Canadian Thanksgiving... With a twist... a beachy twist) and my wife was home sick on Tuesday so I only did about half a day's worth of work. So a short week and a short update. Most of my week was spent on some new camera functionality. I won't really go into it here since I plan to write some proper Lessons from Suzy Cube posts about it and the camera system in general. Stay tuned for those links as I publish the posts. The later bit of my week was spent starting work on the animations for the Skull Bully. I'm about halfway through the list so far so I hope to move on to implementation by early next week. Here's a sampling of how things are shaping up. Lookin' tough! Gettin' riled up for a fight! Well, like I said, short update! Next week will likely involve more GIFs of the Skull Bully, see you then! P.S. On a side note, since feedback from testers means more work on existing levels which means less progress on new levels, I've actually put testing on hold for an undetermined amount of time. Once I've got a design draft of every level done, I'll start a new round of testing targeting a few levels per build. The lessons I've learned from these early rounds of testing have been invaluable already and I strive to incorporate them into every new level I design.
Suzy Cube camera part 1 As promised, the first in a three part mini-series of posts on the camera system in Suzy Cube is live on my blog. You can check it out here: http://louardongames.blogspot.ca/2016/10/lessons-from-suzy-cube-camera-system.html And check back for updates on the next two instalments.
Suzy Cube Update: October 21, 2016 I swear I'm not trolling all of you! I was unexpectedly traveling this week so I didn't get done nearly as much as I had hoped! First things first, I invite all of you to check out the first instalment in a three part series of articles about the camera system in Suzy Cube available here. It's what I spent most of my Monday doing. I left on Wednesday, so I really only had Tuesday left to work on the project. As you can see, I've got the Skull Bully imported into Unity and I've also completed its animations. I look forward to getting started hooking it all up together next week. As a consolation prize for the paltry update, have a couple of GIFs. So, I leave you with this for now and... like.. basically no promises for next week because, apparently, I am no longer the master of my destiny! See you next week!
Sorry, folks internet troubles again. Part 2 of my series on the camera system in Suzy Cube is now up, you can check it out here: http://louardongames.blogspot.com.co/2016/10/lessons-from-suzy-cube-camera-system_24.html
Suzy Cube Update: October 28, 2016 Hey, hey, everybody! The Skull Bully is finally in and functional!! I ran into more issues than I expected in hooking it up so there's not much more to say this week. Sorry! I also spent a lot of time trying to get my internet provider on the phone... yes... I'm still stealing WiFi from my neighbour. (he totally knows... it's totally not stealing...) Anywho... So, the Skull Bully! Here's Suzy totally not paying attention! Here's Suzy totally wishing she was anywhere else! In other news... By yesterday, I was able to move on to design work on Level 4-1. I'm having a hard time really forming a concrete idea of the essence of the level. I've made enough of them now, though, to know how important it is for me not to try to just jump into the editor without first strengthening the paper design. Rushing into building levels has proven a great recipe for spinning my wheels in the past. Next week will, thus, be all about making progress on Level 4-1. See you all then!
Looks awesome! I've been following this since you first posted it on the Unity forums! Looks like it's shaping quite nicely, Mario 3D Land was really fun so this looks right up my alley.
Just wondering why you didn't post this into Upcoming Games instead of this Dev Discussion. Wouldn't it attract more fans? Interesting game by the way. I really enjoyed Super Mario 3D Land, I hope that this game will be as great.
@FancyPenguin: Thanks for the kind words! And hey, if you are into penguins in hats, you should check out Sword & Penguin There's also a free version to try with all different levels! @boadom: Yes, I do think the game would get more eyes in the upcoming games section, but I still find it premature to post there. Also, as a dev log, I'm not sure Upcoming Games is the best place. I'm going to save posting there for announcements and teasers when I get closer to release. Thanks for the interest in the game, though! You know where to look me for more info ^_~
