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[WIP][3D Platformer] Suzy Cube!

Discussion in 'Works In Progress - Archive' started by Louis-N-D, Apr 11, 2014.

  1. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    Good progress.
    What mobile shaders do you use ?
     
  2. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    The static stuff uses mobile diffuse and the dynamic stuff uses mobile vertex directional only. I've also made some custom ones using Shader Forge, but those will need a lot of hand optimizing.
     
  3. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    Actually... I just switched the static ones to also use vertex directional only as I noticed it has zero impact on light map generation and sometimes some of those objects get used without light mapping.

    [EDIT] Riiiight... The environment needs the diffused shader to accept shadows... whoops!
     
  4. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    Back to our regularly scheduled update...

    I'm working on a new level, level 1-3. It's a big descent to the goal and all about learning to use the double jump power up.




    I'm having fun with it. I even added a couple of hidden areas! These are fun for breaking up the look and action of a level and giving the player a sense of exploration and discovery.



    And I'm currently working on a basic flying enemy for the game: Killer Bees!



    Expect to see more of this bad guy next week!

    That's it for this week's update. Not a glamorous one, I'm afraid. It's what happens when I spend most of the week with my nose buried in the editor. So I will leave you with a couple more screenshots.




    See you all next week!
     
    kittik likes this.
  5. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    So, Level 1-3 is done for the moment and I've got my new bee enemies working!



    I suspect they will cause... quite the buzz...

    Moooving on! I've got a good chunk of work done on Level 1-2 which makes me feel pretty good about having a nice presentable World 1 to show off to folks at GDC in March.



    Notice the fog effect? That's actually three things working together...


    The camera background colour...


    The scene fog...


    And finally, my custom gradient objects to simulate height fog.


    Put it all together and you've got a nice misty forest feel.

    Now, I've had all the parts needed to do this in place for a while now, but it was only this morning that I figured I would write a simple script which ensures all three colours match up when the level is loaded. In short, I simply grab the camera background colour, and then set the fog colour to match and finally I set the colour of the gradient object material to match as well. This should make it nice and easy for me to make changes and adjust the background colours of levels to get them just right without having to fiddle with all three colours individually.

    It's not a HUGE thing, but when you're working on your own, every little time saver like this can really pay off in the long run.

    Next week I should be finishing off work on Level 1-2 and then moving on to, either, 1-4 or the first boss level, not sure yet... We'll see next week! See you all then!
     
  6. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    Level 1-2 draft is done! It's all about teaching the player to use jump pads including the normal kind, bounce pads and jump activated pads. I thought the tall trees of a forest motif would be perfect for this.





    I also put in work on converting my previously lava-rific boss into it's watery World 1 version. I set up its attack sequence too and did a bitty bit of set up work to simplify making the level leading up to the boss.



    Otherwise, just a little bit of bug fixing, nothing to write home about.

    Next week I should have a completed boss level draft and, hopefully, some early progress on Level 1-4. Until then, have a great week, folks!
     
    kittik likes this.
  7. kittik

    kittik

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    Like the update. Your project looks awesome!
     
  8. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    Thank you so much! I will keep them coming!
     
  9. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    Ugh, barely an update this week... I spend the first few days working on our annual holiday card so I knew the update this week would be slim... then I updated Unity... And, as usual, I then had some bug fixing to do.

    The funniest still isn't fixed...



    Get it? It's funny because it looks ridiculous, and bees are bugs. it's a bug which affects bugs. Funny.
    Also, it only happens on my iPod which is a pain in the ass. It's so much easier to debug stuff when it happens in the editor too.

    Well, I'm going to get back to work on the World 1 boss level... Ya.. That level I promised would be done this week....



    Oh, speaking of which, this is how the level starts right after you hit the trigger which gets the water flowing... and RISING!! DUN DUN DUUUUN!!

    Ok.. I think I'm done making promises I'll just end up breaking, so... See you all next week!
     
  10. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    This update is a non-update, if you will.

    I've decided that rather than end up posting half baked updates throughout the holiday period, I figured I would would on Suzy Cube when I can, not worry too much about it and then come back with a single update in the new year outlining any progress I may have made between now and then.

    Holiday preparations have simply been taking up more and more of my time and I would rather not force myself to work on the game if it doesn't make sense just so I have something to post to the blog each week.

    And so, I say goodbye to you all for the time being and hope you'll all pop back in in the new year!

    Happy holidays all and have a safe and happy new year!
     
    kittik likes this.
  11. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    kittik likes this.
  12. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    Hey everybody! Hope you had fun over the holidays!

    It's great to be back in the action! Ok, short update. Draft of World 1 boss level is FINALLY done!



    I struggled with a really dumb bug that was really more of a case of boneheadedness rather than an actual bug. You know, when you overlook something so stupid that you simultaneously feel good for solving the problem but like a total idiot for causing it in the first place? Ya, one of those!

    I've still got that darn scaling bees bug to deal with, but that will have to wait for Xcode to reinstall (ugh, computers!)

    Once I get that sorted, I'll dive right into the last outstanding level for World 1, Level 1-4. With Level 1-4, that will mean the whole of world one will be drafted, allowing me to shift to testing and polishing to get ready to show off my vertical slice at GDC in March!

    Hopefully I'll have more to say next week than "I fixed the bee bug!" but, seriously, I'll consider the week a success if I'm simply able to do that!

    See you then!
     
  13. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    Started work on Level 1-4 this week.



    It's been really meandering because I didn't really know what to do with it. It turns out that my one idea to make it more open isn't really an idea at all. I knew I wanted to do this outside-inside thing but I still needed a core mechanism for the level and so... SWITCHES!



    This is just one simple example of what I can do with these switches. I should be able to set up some fun situations using these and I now have a much better idea of what I want to accomplish with the level.

    Also, check it: bees are fixed!



    Sweet! Only problem, I don't really know what caused the bug in the first place. I tore the prefab apart bit by bit to see if I could get the bug to stop happening and couldn't. I then decided to try the opposite approach and rebuild the bee from scratch, one component at a time to see when the bug would show up... It never did! And since I now had a new working bee, I just overwrote the old busted prefab with the new working one. Bee fixed!

    I much prefer when I actually learn something by fixing a bug, but hey, I'll take it!

    Ciao for now and catch you all next week!
     
  14. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    SO, I've got my hook for Level 1-4: Switch activated temporary blocks!
    I know, I know, not a catchy name, but they sure are fun to play around with!



    The problem is, the layout I had been working on since last week really didn't showcase the mechanism well. I spent so much time building the level without knowing what I would, ultimately do with it that it just didn't fit. So, on Wednesday morning, I saved a copy and started over!

    You can't polish a turn, as they say.

    So I spent Wednesday redesigning the whole level on paper, this time totally supporting the core mechanism of the temporary blocks.



    And this morning I finished the first pass draft (whitebox) of the level! Once I actually took the time to work through the design of the level, it came together so much faster!



    Well, that makes all World 1 levels accounted for and drafted! This means I'll be focusing on testing for the next little while and then moving on to decorating the levels once I'm satisfied with the design of all of them.

    After that? GDC, I guess! Any of you planning to attend?

    I'll see you all next week!
     
  15. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    March is fast approaching, gotta get to work making the World 1 levels look their best! A big part of that effort is simply to place more decorative objects in the levels but in doing that for Level 1-1, I kept running into more and more lightmap seam issues. It really sucks that Unity's lightmapping middleware doesn't address the problem of seams with some fancy post filtering or anything, so, in order to address these issues, I'm forced to create secondary UV sets by hand rather than rely on Unity's automatic lightmap UV generation. This probably wouldn't be such a noticeable issue if not for the fact that all the objects in the game are barely textured rounded boxes ^_^. Pretty much a worse case scenario!



    Check out the difference it made on this bush asset!

    I also made the (surprise!) sixth and TRUE final level of World 1 on Monday. It's Level 1-S or Special. The idea with the special stages is to offer the player something different from the usual levels. In the case of Level 1-S, it's a series of isometric perspective puzzles on a short timer ^_^



    Now, here's a trick for any of you working on an isometric game who still want a little perspective. Rather than use an orthographic camera, use a perspective camera with a very narrow field of view. Pull the camera far back in order to frame the action properly and you'll notice that by zooming in, you've essentially "crushed" much of the perspective away. The narrower the FOV, the less perspective you get!

    Next week will, likely, be more decoration efforts for more of the World 1 levels. See you then!

    BONUS WIP shot of Level 1-1

     
    kittik and ADNCG like this.
  16. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    It looks better and better.
    Keep up the good work.
     
  17. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    I'm not sure how to handle this update. I think I'll just write something short-ish here and invite those who want more details to check out my blog post update: http://louardongames.blogspot.com/2016/02/suzy-cube-update-friday-february-5-2016.html

    This week was all about further massaging my World 1 levels both for looks and for playability.

    I had my wife play through hand of the World 1 levels. She doesn't really play these kinds of games, so it was really eye opening! I also got back some gameplay videos and some feedback from a friend of mine who's been testing builds out with his son for a while now.

    This feedback and my observations have lead to a number of changes, either planned or implemented, to the game's early levels. I an not overstate this lesson, which I've learned and relearned over my years in the industry: As developers, we have no idea how hard our games are to other players. There is, simply, no substitute for user testing!

    For you level design nerds, as I mentioned above, if you are interested in a more detailed breakdown of the changes I made this week, especially to Level 1-2, you can go check out my long form update on blog: http://louardongames.blogspot.com/2016/02/suzy-cube-update-friday-february-5-2016.html

    For everyone else, here are eye treats for you!









    Next week is Carnaval here in Venezuela, and that means Monday and Tuesday off so next week's update will probably be a little slimmer. I do hope to make it up to you with a long overdue Lessons From Suzy Cube post, though! (http://louardongames.blogspot.com/search/label/Lessons from Suzy Cube)

    OH! Also, don't forget to let me know if you are planning to attend GDC and would like a chance to try out the game for yourself!

    See you all next week!
     
    Last edited: Feb 5, 2016
  18. u-007

    u-007

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    Wow, this looks amazing. I haven't been on Unity forums since about 1year ago, and I am glad I stumbled on this post. Really nice game so far. Levels well thought out, music is nice, and gameplay overall feels amazing. Like someone mentioned before, it reminds me a lot Super Mario 3D World for Wii U. Looking forward to more progress, keep it up man!
     
  19. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    As previously mentioned, it was Carnaval here in Venezuela this week meaning Monday and Tuesday off, ergo, teeny tiny update this week.

    I've been messing around with ideas for generating skyboxes to spruce up the backgrounds in the game... It's still looking rather rubbish for the moment so nothing to show off, yet.

    Most of my week was, in fact, spent on a meaty new Lessons from Suzy Cube blog post all about level design. I invite all of you to check it out:
    http://louardongames.blogspot.com/2016/02/lessons-from-suzy-cube-level-design.html

    It includes the first ever public video footage of the game!!

    Aw, heck, here it is for those of you who don't like reading so much:



    Well, that's it for this week. GDC is fast approaching, I hope I get to meet some of you there!
    Ciao for now!
     
  20. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    What's up folks!? This week, I focused on creating skybox backgrounds and then spend yesterday doing something stupid!

    I was pretty sure, for the longest time, that I wasn't going to make any sort of background for the game. Well, staring at those vast expanses of solid colour made me realize what a difference a simple background could make.

    I did some experiments and settled on using skyboxes generated right in Unity using reflection probes! Reflection probes are meant to be used for generating cubemaps to fake local reflections on objects, but it turns out, those cubemaps can make damn fine skyboxes too!

    So, I've been setting up background rendering scenes in order to generate skybox textures.



    This is what the background scene for Level 1-1 looks like. Floating islands, blocky clouds, big boxy sun....



    ...all surrounding a reflection probe at the centre of the scene. Also, notice the simple procedural sky shader I created in ShaderForge which allows me to set lower, upper and horizon colours as well as adjust the height and diffusion of the horizon. Quite handy!

    Here are some shots of some of the backgrounds I've got so far (as usual WIP, subject to change.. blah blah blah)









    Surprise Sphinx when you finish the level!!

    So, what's the stupid thing I did? The stupid thing I did was to rewire the way the game handles inputs less than a month before GDC. And it felt SOOO good!
    I use InControl, which is awesome! What's NOT awesome is that I'm a dumb noob who went and wrote a game in JavaScript (never again!). Because of this, I've had to move InControl into the project's Plugins folder so my JS scripts could access InControl which is written in C#.
    The problem with this, is that it made it a huge pain to keep InControl up to date. So, yesterday, I completely changed the way my game interacts with InControl and was able to move InControl back out to where it wants to live in the project hierarchy.

    So, how did I do this? The short version, is that I created a system which uses two scripts, an Input handler (JS) which talks to the game scripts and an InControl Relay (C#) which talks to InControl. The two scripts talk to each other using SendMessage which is a Unity engine function which allows messages to be passed to GameObjects and Components rather than from script to script directly, transcending the language barrier.

    Now, SendMessage is not as efficient as calling functions directly, sure, but it does get around the language problem. If smarter folks than me have a better idea, please, chime in!

    Now it's off to finishing up backgrounds and decoration in time for GDC. See you all next week!
     
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  21. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    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!
     
  22. FeedorFeed

    FeedorFeed

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    I am so excited for this! Hope it gets released on PC
     
  23. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    I see only one problem , some levels have the same color almost on floor and walls , this make them looking very bland.
    Keep the good work.
     
  24. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    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!
     
    Bhanshee00 likes this.
  25. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    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!
     
    PhoenixRising1 likes this.
  26. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    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/g...or-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!
     
    kittik likes this.
  27. EuanHollidge

    EuanHollidge

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    I'm not going to lie, it reminds me a lot of super mario, complete with the jump on head and it dies feature, but it is fun and intresting :)
     
  28. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    Yep. Not really trailblazing by any stretch. I'm just working my hardest making a solid game in a solid genre that actually plays well (GASP) on a touch screen!
     
    Kellyrayj likes this.
  29. EuanHollidge

    EuanHollidge

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    And it is looking awesome, be sure to send me a message when it is done :) will it be a free game or will there be a price attached?
     
  30. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    I won't guarantee it will be a premium game.. but, ya.. MOST PROBABLY a premium game... The very fact that it isn't designed from the ground up as a F2P game is pretty much reason enough to charge for it up front.
     
  31. Bytewizards-SE

    Bytewizards-SE

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    Just stumbled upon this and all I can say is congratulations to a fantastic project/product.
     
  32. kittik

    kittik

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    The video is incredible. So impressed, I would be proud to create something that looks as fun to play as Susy Cube does :)
     
  33. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    WOW! kittik, Wixner, thanks so much for the kind words! Yep, she's coming along, bit by bit!
     
  34. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    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!
     
    Bhanshee00, Bytewizards-SE and kittik like this.
  35. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    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!
     
  36. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    '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.
     
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  37. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

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    Wow! You're making an actual real honest-to-goodness game here. I just tried out that web player demo. Excellent level design. Lots of fun good solid gameplay. A really clean and interesting look to the graphics. Excellent music and sounds. Has a strong retro vibe. Very good control. It really feels pro quality all around. Great work!
     
  38. Master-Frog

    Master-Frog

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    Really adorable, very special-looking.
     
  39. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    What's up Suzy fans!.. Can I call you that? I feel like I can call you that now...

    Anywho, f*ck it, have a bunch of GIFs!


    Cool! So what's this all about? I'm continuing work on Level 5-B, the final boss level, that's what! I'm making a longer level than usual here given that it is the final one. So far, I've got the lead up to the boss tower done. As I've previously mentioned, I'm hitting this one early enough to give me plenty of time to iterate before release. If the game's final level is no good, it leaves a bad taste in the player's mouth, so make sure your game ends on a high note! Hopefully mine will!



    After Suzy gets through this part, she'll then have to climb up a treacherous tower to finally face off with the boss at the top. Should be exciting!

    We've got some seesaw platforms over rising and falling lava, dangerous lava spouts, foreshadowing some of what Suzy will have to contend with during the boss fight, and the new Flying Skull enemies all hooked up and working, spitting their hot hot death at our intrepid heroine!

    This level's a big one with lots of little interactive touches and stuff, so I figure I'll be on it well into next week. I look forward to showing off the finished draft next Friday. See you then!
     
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  40. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    INTERNET IS BACK!!! Sorry for the late update, folks, but my connection's been out all day! The joys of living where I do!

    Ok, so... not much to report as I'm STILL working on Level 5-B. It's a doozy, folks! It has so many sections, and they all require the lava to behave a little differently, and there are other tricky things to set up and have work properly. Yup, a big job.

    The good new is, the level is now playable from start to finish, though a few sections definitely need a rework. Look at this beast!



    You see that large vertical structure? That's for climbing, of course. And what climbing section would be complete without the threat of rising lava!? Thing is that's been a bigger pain in the ass to get working right than I initially though. Basically it comes down to two issues, checkpoints and balance.

    The issue with checkpoints is simple: If Suzy has to be spawned halfway up the tower, then the laval can't restart its journey from the bottom of the level or there'd be no challenge.

    The issue of balancing is similar. If the lava moves too fast, then it can be too stressful or feel cheap if you die without even seeing it creep up on you. On the other hand, if the lava is too slow, then it's too easy to get so far up ahead of it that it poses no real threat and all sense of urgency is lost.

    I tried solving both these issues using existing scripts and trigger volumes but it just turned into an unreliable spaghetti mess that was impossible to maintain. So, I decided to scrap all that complexity and just write a simple custom script to handle the rising lava.

    The way it works is simple, the script simply causes the lava to rise at an adjustable rate while always keeping it within a certain distance of the player. That way the player can't get too far up without the laval plane simply following along. This allows me to fine tune both the speed at which the lava rises and it's maximum distance away from the player so it's always close enough to be scary without ever rising so fast as to kill you out of the blue. As a nice bonus, this also, naturally, takes care of the issue with checkpoints since, as soon as Suzy spawns, the lava just pops up to within the max allowed distance!

    Speaking of lava, I've been toying with a shader in ShaderForge. I put it on a glow plane above the lava and it fades out based on the distance to underlying geometry. The effect is cool, but it really doesn't play nice with transparent objects like particles.



    I'm going to keep experimenting with it, though, as it looks really cool in motion.


    Whoops.. I think I made it rise a little too high , there!

    I don't even know if I can afford the rendering cost of this shader on my target hardware, though (iPod5). I still haven't upgraded my Mac OS to be able to build to it again and Unity Cloud Build has been failing to check out my SVN repository all week, so no remote builds either! Not good!

    Well, no promises I'll be done with the level next week, but either way, I'll see you all here!
     
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  41. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    It's a trim and slim update this week.
    Most of my week was spent on updating my Mac OS (did I mention sub Mb internet?), updating XCode and getting builds to my iPod working again. Good news, they do! Better news, the boss level runs well!

    I also spent some time, with the help of my friend Phil, getting a build up on TestFlight for the first time. It worked between us (internal) and it seems the build for external testers was approved but I haven't heard back from any of them yet (just a couple friends of mine for now). If all goes well, I should be able to recruit a first crop of truly external testers next week. (I'm not taking names yet, please don't message me about it until then!)

    Oh, and after all that boring stuff, I decided to relax and model a pile of coins. It waits or Suzy at the end of the final boss level. Oh, and it twinkles!



    And, yes, that DOES mean that Level 5-B is now good and done (the design part anyway). Like all levels, it will sit in its non-decorated state until it's been run through enough testing for me to feel confident in the layout and all that. But, for now, I can add it to the testing rotation and move on to the next level in my list!

    I look forward to telling you all about that next week. See you then!
     
  42. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    It's another short update this week as I was away last weekend and part of the week. (Link below for more info on that)

    As you can see above, I've made a lava themed background that's perfect for the final boss level and gives the impression of being in a vast cave.

    Things are also looking good for TestFlight. I'm not quite ready to start taking names yet, but soon, I promise!

    So, why the short week? You can read a bit more about it in this week's update on my blog: http://louardongames.blogspot.com/2016/05/suzy-cube-update-friday-may-27-2016.html#more
    But here's a hint...



    Next week, I will, hopefully, have everything in place to start wider scale testing and will be starting work on a new snow themed boss level.
    Until then!
     
  43. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    I am now accepting tester requests! Send me a private message with the subject "Suzy Cube Testing Request" to get added to the list.

    A couple things to note before doing this:
    I am, currently, only accepting requests from folks with iOS devices AND Only serious requests, please. If all you want is to play the game, I would rather you wait for the released version and have a much better experience. If, however, you want to help make Suzy awesome, then please send me a PM and I'll add you to the list.

    Ok, with that out of the way...



    Check it! I'm finally working on Level 3-B and it's coming along nicely!



    It's an ice themed boss level involving slides, falling stalactites and crumbling platforms. Suzy's gonna have to watch her step on this one! Particularly harrowing is the fact that the slides force you downwards while icy water relentlessly creeps ever higher!

    And who's waiting at the top?



    Why, it's the wintery coloured version of our old friend the boss/dragon/sea monster thing, of course!

    So.. I should probably get back to it! Happy weekend everybody!
     
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  44. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    Level 3-B is in the can (design-wise, anyway) and has been added to the test queue for the next build. Next up will be the World 2 boss fight set in the desert!

    Speaking of testing, I'm still looking for volunteers, so PM me if you're interested! Thanks to all of you who've already signed up!

    I've been getting and incorporating feedback from this first round of outside testing and have gathered a few dozen game clips as well. The S***ty thing is that a combination of my S***y internet connection and the fact Everyplay refuses to reduce video quality to a suitably crappy level has conspired against me actually being able to view these clips from home! I'm planning on popping into the Embassy with a note pad this afternoon to review the clips and take notes. This might become a weekly thing as those gameplay clips and like level designer gold!

    I've also been messing around with a plug-in I got from the Unity Asset Store called PA Particle Fields from Popup Asylum (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/33271). This asset simply allows for the easy creation of particle fields based on volumes. These volumes can then be parented to objects like, say, the camera to give the impression of level wide atmospheric effects like...


    Sun beams through trees...


    A gentle snowfall...


    Burning embers...


    Or blustering sand drifts!

    Though these particle fields are fundamentally much more limited than Unity's own particle systems, they are perfectly suited to the task and perform very well!

    Finally, I just want to let you all know that I'm going to be pulled away on some Embassy related duties for the next few weeks. It's nothing full time, but it will cut into Suzy's development. I'll do what I can to keep the updates coming but I really don't know the impact this extra work will have on my schedule and stuff so thanks for your patience and I'll keep you all in the loop.

    See you next week.
     
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  45. SullyTheStrange

    SullyTheStrange

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    Hey Louis! :) We met at GDC if you remember, you played my Sneaky Ninja at the Indie Megabooth and I played Suzy Cube. Awesome to see how much progress you're making! Once testing opens up for Android (if it ever does) I'll definitely sign up.

    (And those particle effects are great!)
     
  46. kittik

    kittik

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    I too would play the beta if it goes on Android (or even on Steam) ;)

    Love the progress you're making, Suzy Cube is going to be amazing. Also I really like those particles.
     
  47. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    Of course I remember you Sully! Great to hear from you! To both you and kittik, please PM me with name and email and I will add you to the list. No timeline on Android testing yet but there's no harm getting on the list!
     
  48. SullyTheStrange

    SullyTheStrange

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    Awesome, PM sent! Looking forward to it, whenever it happens. Til then, keep up the good work!
     
  49. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    Who wants a World 2 boss level!!?

    Yep, Level 2-B is in the bag (ready for testing anyway). It's a desert themed one with a bit of a twist on the boss fight.



    In most of the other fights, you need to wait for the boss to attempt a close range attack in order to create an opening for jumping on its head. As you can see in the gif, though, this fight has you using the double jump hat to plant those bops right at the boss' head height! It makes the fight feel refreshingly proactive!





    The level has Suzy climbing up a face of the tower by negotiating the timing of the dark platforms which move in and out of the rear wall. All while the tower is being swallowed by rising sand, of course!

    While playing with the colour scheme for the World 2 boss, I ended up deciding to change up the colours for the final boss as well in order to better distinguish them.



    I think the deeper reds and blacks give the final boss a more sinister appearance.

    I hope to go back to the Embassy internet connection this afternoon to review the latest crop of videos from my testers. I did that last week, and man am I glad I took the time to implement video recording! I spent all of Monday implementing changes and fixes off my list of notes from last Friday's tester video binge watching session.

    Ok, Gotta get ready to leave to go check out them videos. Check back next week when I'll have more tweaks from the testers and, hopefully, some healthy progress on the last boss level, Level 4-B.
     
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  50. Louis-N-D

    Louis-N-D

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    What's up folks! I've been busy with other stuff so it's a slim update this week.

    I did get to spend a little time looking into implementing changes based on last Friday's crop of tester videos and feedback. You truly are designing blindly until you watch others play your game!

    Not much time spent on Level 4-B except for a bit of progress on the paper design of the level and the implementation of this bangin' little number...



    The low framerate of the gif messed with the flashing of the bomb, but I'm sure you get the idea.. beep beep beep... BOOM!

    Ok, another hour or so of looking into a couple of crash bugs then back to non-Suzy duties.

    See you next week!
     
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