Super Toaster X: Learn Japanese

Trev is moving studio at the moment which is why there’s not much happening at the moment. I’m hoping to share more content as soon as possible.



We’re currently at v.1.07 of the engine prototype. The reason why I’m not showing anything is because it’s not quite what I want it to be just yet (and I’m self-conscious about it!). It keeps improving but it’s not quite there yet. Next time I record a .gif about the engine, you’ll see a clear and cut improvement over the previous version you saw last.

The main issue is the rope jump. It’s too clunky at the moment and I want this to be super fluent and nimble. I want the player to feel like he has excellent control over the swing rope and the moves he can pull with it. I want the physics to be top notch. At the moment, when you release from a swing, the momentum isn’t portrayed accurately enough or not dynamically enough. Your momentum doesn’t carry you very far which makes the whole notion of rope jump not very exciting. I want the player to feel like spiderman swinging in between buildings, that kind of dynamism and speed is what I’m looking for.

A lot of other stuff is being implemented but I won’t be showing anything until the rope jump is the way I want it to be.
I’m trying to tweak the controls to be more responsive. I want Pan to react instantly to commands, I don’t want a single delay because of animation frames getting in the way. I’d rather have animations which are less fluid and accurate control than the other way around.

Another thing which bothers me is the way one of Pan’s foot changes orientation when shooting. It really annoys me (I was trying to reproduce Mega Man’s shooting stance but it just doesn’t work well). I’ll need to fix that.



Nev (who has just introduced himself in the previous message, is currently getting into the details of actual level design.

Another sketch (as you can see, it's getting a lot more detailed):


I also have a much better idea of the enemies we'll be designing. Some of them are pretty cool I think.


Another thing I’d like to integrate is the whip. This was mentioned a while ago and I responded that I preferred the main weapon to be a long range weapon. I figured there really was no harm in adding a short-range melee weapon. I’d like the animation to be based of the Castlevania structure: not many frames but plenty of impact. I have a tendency to animate too animate with too many frames. This is a bad habit I’m working on. I feel like few animations give an unpolished look the characters but it’s because I don’t use certain techniques enough (like blurring for one thing).

I'm not happy with the current version, it lacks something. But, just to show that I am working on it:


Hair dryer, still wip:


Some questions I’m asking myself:
a. Should shooting your Voltcannon (long range weapon) use up LB (liquid butter)? This would force the player to rely both on melee and ranged attacks. It would also encourage players to try to grab butter cubes. In Mega Man, you basically never use secondary weapons except when facing a boss (bad design I think). Once emptied, the LB meter recharges up to a certain point, so it wouldn’t be very problematic as a game mechanic. Charged shots would also use more LB than regular shots. It would also make a LB meter upgrade more appealing. Right now, I think I’d like to implement that mechanic. In Earthworm Jim, your ammo is limited. Once you run out, you can still fire but only not as effectively. It also forces the player to be more considerate when using ammunition as opposed to firing constantly all over the place.

b. Should out-of-toaster form allows for other actions than just crawling? If I just let it crawl, just how much can I use this mechanic in-game? It would be limited and repetitive… OOT (out of toaster) should be fun too. I don’t want the player to think that OOT is a pain in the neck he has to go through. In “Ratchet and Clank”, I always thought the segments with Clank were irritating...