[WIP][3D Platformer] Suzy Cube!

Sorry, folks, no update this week as I was busy with other duties!

 

hello from Tigsources!

 

Hi Louis,
your game looks very nice. It remains me to Super Mario 64. Go ahead with such good work!

 

I've been having problems trying to post in the "new" forums.. somehow I was able to find this old version of the thread. So I'm going to post my missing updates back to back.

 

I wasn't expecting to have an update for all of you this week but other work has been pushed back, so here we are!

I worked on the Ground Pound power-up this week!



Those of you who've been following the development of Suzy Cube for a while might be thinking, "But, Louard, the Ground Pound's been working since forever!"

This is true, but it needed work. Actually, it still needs work.. man I hate bugs that happen all the time except when trying to debug them!!!!

Anywho, why did I feel the need to mess with the ground pound? Because it wasn't very good. Take, as a counter example, the Double Jump, the game's other power-up. What makes the Double Jump so great? The fact that its use doesn't need to be designed into a level. Sure, I can hide things out of reach and create shortcuts which can only be accessed using the Double Jump, but, fundamentally, in a game that's all about jumping, enhancing that most basic of abilities will always be a net win for the player.

In short, the Double Jump is awesome because it's always useful.

The Ground Pound, on the other hand was not... It was only good for three things:
-Breaking rock blocks.
-Killing rock enemies.
-Activating Ground Pound only switches.

You'll notice that the power-up would be useless in a level not containing any of these elements. This made the Ground Pound feel less like a power-up and more like a gimmick.

My first idea was to add an area of effect knockback to the landing. So I did that!



This was a great start, but while working on it, I found myself looking at other hazards and wondering...



Pushing bombs away seems like it should open up some interesting possibilities. And as well should...



DEFLECTING FRIGGIN' PROJECTILES!!!

I even added a little extra logic to the projectile deflection to, shall we say, encourage awesome situations? You see, a projectile hit by the shockwave will be deflected away from Suzy's centre, this looks about right and gets Suzy out of harm's way. The little bit of logic I added, though, checks the result of the deflection, and if it's going to , more or less, send the projectile back in the direction from which it came, simply artificially turns the projectile 180 degrees so it goes back EXACTLY the way it came.. probably leading to this:



This means that, more often than would normally occur, the projectile will get reflected back at the shooter but if the shockwave hits off to the side or something, the projectile is simply deflected away.

This new functionality of the Ground Pound...
-Enemy knockback.
-Bomb pushback.
-Projectile deflection.

...is different in that it applies to many more situations found in the game and doesn't need to be specifically designed for. The Ground Pound suddenly becomes useful in any situation involving enemies or projectiles, for example. This makes the power-up feel less like a gimmick and more like a tool. Is it as awesome as the Double Jump? No, probably not, but it now holds its own as a fun and surprising addition to Suzy's arsenal as opposed to a fancy animated key to a handful of decorated locks.

I've got a few more things to work on to complete work on these additions as well as finishing up the paper design for the World 4 boss level. I hope to start building the level soon. As you might have guessed, it's going to make heavy use of the Ground Pound.

I don't know what timelines are going to look like for a while since much will depend on these Embassy contract dates getting pushed around. Whatever happens I'll keep you all in the loop.

See you next week!

 

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!

 

Really looking great. Very interesting choices made overall.

Sucks about all of the upgrade issues. Two steps forward and one backwards. I think I'd just stay on the same version until you are done rather than go through this hassle again and again. Anyway, keep on going!

 

Ya, but I just can't say no to the promise of better performance and future proofing. I'm still far from release and I want to stay current. Though.. don't think I haven't thought about it ^_^

 

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!

 

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 from Suzy Cube

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

 

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

 

I like the instruction panel idea! I remember that being a part when I played at GDC where I had to stop and fuddle around for a minute before realizing how to progress, while you stood there like an unhelpful statue seeing if I could figure it out. Glad to see you put some thought into that one. Have you found any newbies to test it on to see if it helps them?

The rotating block guy has a great design, that springy face makes it look like he's having way too much trolling poor lil' Suzy.

I enjoyed the blog posts too. I always knew my feelings regarding palate cleansers (totally agree with you on the Halo vs CoD example), but I never had to put it into words before, so thanks for the terminology. And reinforcing player behavior is especially critical leading up to a boss fight or other challenge that tests a skill, definitely a huge lesson I learned from Mario.

Keep up the good work!

 

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!

 

Yes, I've had, mostly, success with noobs and the new instructional panels, though getting to grips with gliding after the second jump still seems to trip some folks up. More research needed!

 

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!

 

Sorry about the late update, but I’ve 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 wouldn’t be ground dependant and could be used to keep the player moving. The result? This hot little number…



It simply chases Suzy relentlessly and won’t 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 I’ll likely be hiding some coins or items around this part of the level for curious players, I also didn’t want it to be so vast and boring.

I’ve said it a million times: Cutting S***ty things out of your game makes it better than adding good things.

On that note.. that’s it! I’ve got a little more work to do on the level and then I start on the next one. See you next week!

 

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?

 

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.

 

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.

 

Very nice camera write-up! I hope to make the jump from 2D platformers to 3D one day and the camera seems like one of the more intimidating aspects of it, but that setup makes it look easy. Interested to see where parts 2 and 3 go with it.

 

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

 

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!

 

Almost forgot to post about this!! The third, and final instalment of my mini-series on the camera system in Suzy Cube is live:
http://louardongames.blogspot.com.co/2016/10/lessons-from-suzy-cube-camera-system_31.html

Happy reading!

 

Ahoy ahoy!

Level 4-1 is finally taking shape.



A mix of forested and rocky areas showcasing the Ground Pound power up. Oh! And speaking of Ground Pounds, check out this little guy!



Pretty dope, right!? If you defeat him, you can snag the power-up for yourself too so he acts kind of like a mobile power-up dispenser but that comes with show-don't-tell instructions! I also made a jumping Skull wearing a Double Jump hat.



I'm hoping as players see these regular enemies wearing silly hats doing something different they will figure out that Suzy wearing a silly hat might just be able to do something different too!

I also worked on a couple other odds and ends. I made a set of more reliable and reusable cave entrance style archways. You know, a set of two unconnected doors which teleport the player giving the illusion of them being connected by a tunnel. It's something I've set up for other levels in the past but those were custom, one off set ups. This new prefab allows me to just plop such doorways into a level with no additional setup. So that's cool.

I also made a slight modification to my cannons allowing them now to impart an initial velocity to projectiles. So far, all I've been shooting out of cannons are rockets and fireballs, both of which fly themselves, so cannons have only needed to spawn projectiles, not make them go or anything. With this new change, though, cannons can now shoot out otherwise static objects like... oh, I dunno... bombs?



I wouldn't stand there if I were you...

So, that's it for this week. I'm hoping to wrap up Level 4-1 by mid or late next week and have enough time to start on the next stage, but we shall see. Unexpected stuff has a way of popping up, it seems!

P.S. If you're in the Caracas area, I'm planning to attend Expo Game Fest this Sunday so hit me up on Twitter if you're also planning to attend and we can try to meet up. I should have a Suzy build handy for anyone who wants to give it a go.

 

Loving all the positive comments, keep them coming ^_^ (get it?)

Ok, update time, it's a short and sweet one this week. Design draft of Level 4-1 is done!



Building out and refining the level is what I spent most of the week on so there's not all that much to say. I fixed up some little stuff here and there, but nothing really noteworthy. All about Level 4-1 this week.

Oh, I did add this little feature...



Invisible (or nearly) coins which only appear once Suzy passes through them once. We've seen this in Mario, they are handy for rewarding eagle eyed players and setting up situations enticing risk takers to retread dangerous challenges. Anywho, another tool in the box!

I'm feeling really good about the next level on the list, Level 5-1. Unlike 4-1, my notes on this one are much clearer and I've got a really good idea of what I want to do with each section of the level. I'm excited to get started on it but I doubt I'll have the opportunity to do so before next week.

Like I said, short and sweet. Check back in next week to see how things are getting on with Level 5-1!

P.S. I also updated Unity to the latest patch release, finally fixing a LOOONG standing shadow bug!

 

I'm probably going to be more psyched about this update than the rest of you, but that's cool! Not only did I start work on Level 5-1, but I also completed the design draft of the level!! That's another one in the can! (for now ^_^)



It's a lava themed level which has little Suzy navigating platforms paths which sink and emerge from the lava as well as conveyor belt style moving platforms.



I want to point out the shape of the platforms. Notice how they have a border and a raised center with sloped sides? It's a bit hard to see given the framerate in the GIFs but I modeled them this way so that the platforms really look like they are emerging from the lava. A flat topped platform would simply seem to appear at the lava's surface and wouldn't read as sinking or rising through the liquid.

I wrapped up the major work on the level by Thursday freeing me up to check off some odds and ends from my to-do list. Mostly usability tweaks like this one...



This is one of the rooms from the Zelda inspired level, Level 2-1. During game play, the spiked rollers move back and forth in the pit. They aren't super hard to avoid or anything, but since the camera moves from room to room in this level, it was possible to enter the room (through the door on the right) and fall into the pit sight unseen. To remedy this, I added the little guardrail that you can see in the screenshot. I wanted to use this as yet another example of those subtle little details in a level's design which make the difference between done and good.

Ok, next week I start work on another level. I've already started doing a bit of paper design on it but I really want to spend the necessary energy on the planning so building the level goes smoothly like it did for this last level. Check in next week for more progress!

P.S. No promises though... I picked up a few games during the Xbox Black Friday sale... So.. we'll see...

 

How did you do the animations? Only with Unity or with some other Plugin ins?

Do you have a Release date? This project is very cool!

 

No, no release date yet, sorry. And I model and animate using Maya LT

 

I love those particles, animations, art style. Looks extremely polished. Keep up the good work.

I played the first webplayer build you had up and I had a lot of fun, the controls felt great.

 

This looks quite interesting and very polished.
Can't wait to try it out. will you be running a beta at any point?

 

Level 3-2 is done, for the moment, as I spent the later part of Friday and the early part of this week making tweaks and changes and doing a full coins and pick-up pass on the level. It's amazing what a sense of purpose adding collectibles can bring to a level.



You'll also notice I've added gradient shapes to the outer portions of the level. During gameplay, these blend into the background colour and help sell the underground look of the level.



They are also mightily handy for hiding goodies, seemingly, outside the level bounds, like this star pick-up.

I'm also, almost, done with the initial build pass for level 4-2.



It's a fun auto-scroll level involving a bunch of moving platforms, mostly moving in the opposite direction to the camera. I still need to complete the end of the level and add enemies and pick-ups, but most of the tricky stuff, like properly timing the platform and camera movements, is already in place.

I expect to finish off the first design pass on the level by early next week before moving on to, either, another level or a detour to start re-working the level select screen which is in need of a functional retool. Check in next week to find out!

 

Wow, folks, I'm sorry I missed Friday. I was really busy and ended up writing my blog post on Thursday instead and then forgot to write my forum update to go with it.

Ok, so, I wrapped up the first design pass on Level 2-4 and made good progress on Level 2-2!



It's all about rotating blocks! I don't have any deep design insight to go with this this one but I did put some work into custom rotator blocks to solve an issue a friend of mine (http://www.flatheadgames.com/) had with rotators I had in my prototype level many moons ago before Suzy Cube was even, really, a game.

His issue was that he couldn't simply walk from face to face by moving against the rotation of the block. This was because, despite having rounded corners, the block's collision volume was a simple box. Well, no more!



These new custom rotator blocks have more rounded corners and actually employ compound colliders made up of boxes and capsules in order to form nice rounded edges Suzy can run across.

The set up involves 12 capsules (one for each edge) and three intersecting boxes to cover the faces.




You can check out by blog post about it for a step by step cross section breakdown of the collider setup. http://louardongames.blogspot.com.co/2016/12/suzy-cube-update-friday-december-8-2016.html

That's pretty much it for this week. As I mentioned it was a very busy one, non-Suzy wise, I mean. I hope to be more productive next week.

So, it looks like I didn't work on the level select screen after all. Next week? Who knows! One thing's for sure, I'll be continuing work on Level 2-2! See you then.

 

Sorry, folks, spent many, MANY hours in my kitchen washing utensils, pots and pans and all manner of cooking wares as, apparently, that's a thing you have to do after getting your place fumigated... Bummer...

BUUUT...

I did finish up the design draft for Level 2-2.



Basically, it's a simple continuation of the work I had started last week but with tweaks to the difficulty (such as replacing some rotators with safe platforms and closing gaps) as well as integrating coins, pick-ups and stars.

Something else I did was to make the rotators shiny!



A loose rule I've been following for Suzy's development has been to use the same, simple material on all solid surfaces. This allows almost every static object and every dynamic object to be batched together along with giving the game a distinct and cohesive look. However, I decided to break this rule for the rotators and give them faked specular highlights in order to better sell their motion, especially when running on top of large rotators which take up most of the screen. See, the problem in those cases is that the silhouette of the rotator isn't visible so there are few cues to give you a good sense of the block's rotation. Seeing the highlight crawl over the surface helps immensely with this.

Finally, I've started working on the technical setup for Level 5-2. The level will have Suzy trying to escape an avalanche of sorts while sliding down snowy hills. So I got to work on the avalanche ball of death!



The GIF is kinda choppy but I think it still gets across the sense of urgency.

Bad news for next week. I've been putting off working on my wife and mine's annual animated holiday card but I must put off no longer. I figure most, if not all, of my week will be spent working on the card so I'm not sure I should promise anything Suzy related. Check back in anyway, though, as we never know!

 

I wanted to take the time to wish everyone a great holiday season, and to thank all of you for coming along with Suzy and myself on this great journey!

I don't plan to work on the game all that much for the next week or so and will, likely, be skipping the next two updates. Keep checking back in for Suzy's return to the blogosphere after Christmas.

Happy Holidays!
Joyeuses Fêtes!
¡Felices Fiestas!

 

Just a quicky for anyone checking in this week as I've not much to report having taken, pretty much the whole week off.
I did, however, attempt to re-model the lettering used on the title screen. Though I didn't like the results and scrapped the work, I did decide to re-shade the title letters by hand rather than continue using the the old lightmapped letters. Here is a side by side of the old and new for comparison:




As you can hopefully see, the old shading was splotchy and less well defined.

Oh, and I'm working on this...



I'll let all of you speculate about it.

 

It's a pet pig!

 

Happy 2017 everybody! First update of the year! Hopefully the first update of the year all of you finally get to play Suzy Cube!!


No promises...



Ok, so, first thing's first, progress on the pig from last week...



It's a piggy bank! And it's shiny!



Now, it won't just be sitting there spinning in the game, that's just to show off the shininess. The idea is that if Suzy comes across one of these hidden piggy banks, it'll freak out and run away. If Suzy can chase it down and bop it, it'll explode in a shower of coins!

It's just one of those fun, smile inducing surprises.

The meat of my week was spent working on that fabled rejiggering of the level select screen! Ok.. half my week... Monday was a holiday and I caught a cold over the holidays... Anywho! LEVEL SELECT!

The big change I.m working on is to move from a paged system to a scrollview for the world selection. It looks like this:



The reason for the change is that swiping from world to world is much more natural on a touch screen, and I wanted folks using other input devices, like controllers, to be able to intuitively move between worlds by simply selecting past the leftmost or rightmost levels in a world. This, by the way, isn't natively supported by the scrollviews in Unity so I experimented with this custom functionality in a clean blank scene.



In this scene, selecting any of the buttons will cause the scrollview to move to center that button on screen. Which looks like this:



And, BTW it feels really natural when using a controller.

That's really the meat of this redesign, but I'm also going to be taking the opportunity to address some bugs and change up other bits of functionality. I expect to be on this well into next week. So, please, check in next week even though I know UI redesigns aren't the world's most exciting topic!

Together, we can get this done! 2017!!

 

Well, hey folks! Small change of plans. A friend of mine convinced me to enter Suzy Cube into the 2017 IndiePlus contest:
http://indieplus.game/

This has, mostly, meant concentrating on making the necessary changes to send a build to the contest rather than strict forward progress.

Thankfully, the contest does not require games to be finished. This is good as I don't have time to finish the game in a week. What I did have time to do, however was make this sign to plop into all the stubbed in levels currently taking the place of unfinished stages.



What this also means is that I had to move some progress impeding bugs to the top of my stack. Primarily, a couple bugs in Level 2-B.



One bug made it impossible to get an opening on the boss during his third attack sequence. No opening, basically meant an unbeatable boss fight... Which is problematic...



The other bug involved simply adding this gift box containing a Double Jump power-up next to one of the checkpoints. This was really just a boneheaded oversight on my part as the level requires the use of the power-up to proceed but the placement of this one checkpoint made it possible to respawn with no way of actually getting off the starting platform. Whoops! Well, Double Jump added and problem solved!

I also took the opportunity while I was in there to fix a number of other boss related bugs. So all in all, boss fights are in better shape now.

Finally, I did get a little work done on the Level Select screen. Most notably has been building upon my work from last week to now have the world pages automatically center after dragging. Simply put, once you lift your finger after a drag, a simple function loops through the page positions and figures out which one is closest to center of the screen and automatically centers on that page. It feels really natural on mobile, just like swiping between pages of your Home Screen.



Oh.. I do have this other issue I just can't seem to figure out. I don't know when it happened, but at some point, my pause menu became unresponsive to mouse and touch input. Still works with a controller, but completely unresponsive to taps and clicks. Kind of a problem as it means there's no way of returning to the game after pausing!



I would really like to figure out a fix for this before sending a build to the contest...

Next week, I plan to send a build out early enough to give me time to react to any issues with the submission process. After that, it's back to the Level Select screen and the last couple of improvements I have planned. Check back in to see how it all went.

 

As usual, thanks to everyone following for your kind words and encouragement!

I concentrated on getting build up for the IndiePlus 2017 competition this week. I'm glad the upload process to TestFlight went off problem free. On my crappy internet, I usually have to retry the upload several times. This time, no connection interruptions and uploads finished pretty quickly. I uploaded one build, like, Wednesday with a couple stopgap hacks but then uploaded an updated build on Thursday which, among a couple smaller changes, fixed the infuriating pause menu bug from last week.

If I can go on a short tangent... Turns out what made my pause menu unresponsive to taps and clicks was the inclusion of a canvas component on the menu's parent panel... I did this to avoid Unity having to re-batch the whole UI just to animate the pause menu but it also caused this bug. Still don't get it. I removed the canvas component and the menu started working again. Performance doesn't seem affected really, so, whatevs!

OK, back to the update!

So, other than getting the build ready and uploaded for the contest, I also finished the implementation for the Piggy Bank.. uh.. not enemy?



It's behaviour is super simple. It just perpetually runs away from Suzy, just a tiny bit slower than her run speed. Trapping it in a corner works best for actually popping it and getting that sweet sweet shower of coins!



I've also made good progress on Level 5-2, the one with the rolling snow boulder. I've adding obstacles and hazards to the slopes and decided to use teleporters between distinct sections in order to get around the problem of checkpoints.

You see the issue is in ensuring the boulder doesn't just start at the beginning of the level after a respawn. Instead, I split the level into distinct sections each with its own boulder which is usually triggered by Suzy sliding down the first slope of the section.

Anywho. Next week, I'll be concentrating on more level design. I've decided to shelve the further changes to the Level Select screen I'm planning to do as getting the levels done is really what's holding up the next round of testing which needs to happen sooner rather than later.

See you all next week!

 

Hey, folks! Looky what we've got! Level 5-2 all up and drafted! I put the finishing touches on the initial design yesterday. I think the stage will be a fittingly challenging one which should be a nice fit for World 5 and be a perfect lead-in to the more relaxed feel of Level 5-3. The constant pressure of the Impending-Snow-Boulder-of-Doom certainly helps keep the tension high throughout the stage, and the varied obstacles should keep our little Suzy on her toes. (if she had toes)



I am starting to get a sense of there being a light at the end of the tunnel. My level design to-do list now only has four regular levels and four special levels left on it!

Before we all get too excited, though, I must remind all of you... And myself... That once I get through this list, I will have a draft version of every level done. This will lead into several rounds of user testing and iterations to improve the levels before gradually giving way to levels getting nailed down and ready for final decoration. Completing the level drafts is, of course, a HUGE step toward releasing Suzy Cube, but it is by no means the final step. Much work still lies ahead!

Though this first design pass isn't meant to include any decorations, I did have to put in one little thing...


Oh no!

In case players don't immediately get that the big rolling snow boulder is dangerous, maybe noticing this poor frosty dude totally eating it will help drive the point home.

That's actually it for this week. Pretty much concentrated on the level the whole time. By yesterday afternoon, I started on the paper design for the next stage, but nothing ready to show yet. Check in next week to see my progress.

Ciao!

 

Been hard at work on Level 3-4. A wet, water filled forest level brimming with logs and rafts to float on!



I had other duties this week, so I wasn't able to finish the initial design pass on the level, though I'm continuing work this afternoon. The early bit of my week was spent finalizing the paper design and coming up with a nice, cheap and stylized solution for all that flowing water needed in the level.

I really wanted to reuse an existing scrolling material I had created for other animated water effects. In the end I ended up mapping a square, split into strips, onto a simple straight gradient section of my water effects texture atlas.



By offsetting the trips which make up the plane, I was able to create a wave-like effect.



This is what it looks like in motion...



And with added particles, the waterfall effect is complete!



Oh! Another neat thing I did in this level was to get around the challenge of trying to maintain spatial continuity by using a fake cave entrance leading to a connecting section of the level which gives the impression of Suzy traveling behind the waterfall in order to emerge in the next section of the level.



In truth, these passageways are actually teleporters and none of these bits of the level are actually anywhere near each other ^_^
It's Movie Magic!

Well, that's it for this week. I've got to get back to my watery playground!
See you all next week!

 

Hey,

Just wanted to say I've been following your posts since the start and I really like what you are making here, one of the few threads on here I keep track of. I especially like how you go over some of the thought process that went in to certain design aspects and things you went back and changed. Shows some passion and real thought has been put in to what your doing.

Keep up the good work.

 

Wow! Thank you so much! I'm glad you're enjoying the updates and I hope you'll enjoy the finish product just as much!

 

Ok, gonna keep it short and sweet this week as I've been goofing off most of the morning and really should get back to work!

Level 3-4 design draft? Done!



If you fancy a nice stroll down some rapids, then this is definitely the level for you!



Took me longer than expected to get the level to this point, so it took me until Thursday to, finally, put pencil to paper on the next stage, 4-4. Hope to have more progress to share on that level next week... Along with more on this mean lookin' character!



What's it all about!? Why is it holding a bone!?

Check in next week to find out.
Bye for now!

 

Well, holy crapola! Suzy Cube is one of 10 finalists to the IndiePlus competition!! That means I'm going to be flying to San Fran in two weeks for GDC after all since I've been invited to attend the winner's ceremony/party!

And THAT means my work on the game has been completely derailed in favour of prepping for the conference!

Last year, I think, I spent nearly two months preparing for GDC, this year, I got a week and a half! So, I'll be preparing promo materials.. Like this sweet ass poster...



... And also decorating a couple of levels to use as a showcase at the con. Last year, I put a lot of time into all of World 1 in order to have a nice demo to show. That much work just isn't feasible this time around so I think concentrating on two levels is a good plan.

Did I get anything done this week besides the poster? (which, BTW, I had to touch up from screen captures from Unity as I don't own 3D rendering software! Suzy herself is a complete vector trace-over of her in-game model!)

Well, yes, yes I did get something done! I've started work prettying up Level 3-4 for GDC. The waterfalls are cool, so I think it'll be a nice showcase level... Should have screens for you next week before I fly off.

I also finished work on the eyepatch wearing Skull from last week... What's it do!?



Yep, it's basically a Hammer Bro.

It can throw any manner of trinket, but I pre-made two versions, one which thrown bones (as seen above) and one which throws BOMBS!!! Mwahahaha!

Well, that's it for this week's update... I'm going to go back to freaking the hell out about GDC!!

BTW, If you're going to be at GDC and want to meet up and play the game, hit me up on Twitter (@LouardOnGames)

See you next week!

 

Damn congratulations! I'm excited for you man, you really deserve it!

 

Congrats!
This is awesome news, and for some reason I'm excited as though it was my own game.

I hope we get some more info about what you encounter there.

 

Congrats man! Wish I was going to GDC again to play some more Suzy Cube, but alas, not this year.

 

Congratulations sir! As I said your passion and hard work show through in the quality of your work, no doubt the reason your a finalist! Good luck at GDC!!