Super Toaster X: Learn Japanese

Programming with Sahand:

On the programming front, Sahand is making steady progress. He’s currently fixing the rest of the bugs and implementing new things. It’s now possible to shoot your grapple while in mid-air (which wasn’t possible before). The charged shot has also been implemented. He’s also working on coding the bread walk system (when you jump out of your suit to explore). The controls were not as responsive as I wanted them so that has been improved upon as well. If this game is going to be fun, it needs responsive controls.

I’m more or less done spriting the first enemy and figured out his pattern, so this will be taken care of next.

Level design
The bathroom level is starting to take shape. While it was very vague at first, it is getting more and more precise. The person working on level design has a lot of good ideas (seriously, I’m skeptical by nature but I really liked them). It’s just a matter of funneling the ideas and tweaking them until they’re realistic to implement, resource wise. Creativity sometimes don’t initially go hand in hand with practicality.

A quick sketch of some ideas by Nav:




Design:

I’ve been re-playing the old Mega Man for nes and “studying” them (well Mega Man 6 to be exact). Checking what kind of traps there are and how the level are designed. I’ve also been watching videos on youtube which give ideas how to make good design choices. So I would say I’m more learning at the moment than creating.

It’s funny how unreliable your memory is when you recall older games. In my mind, Mega Man games were nothing short of brutally challenging. Well, it turns out there the 6 wasn’t that hard. So, what did I realize while playing this game?

1. I used to think that Mega Man stages took a good 15-20 minutes to get to the boss. Boy was I wrong. It took me 4 minutes (not especially rushing) to get to Tomahawk’s boss. It takes me about 4-5 minutes to get to a boss generally speaking. In hindsight, it’s understandable as it would be frustrating for players to have to trudge through 20 minutes every time they get a game over.

Conclusion: Make shorter stages than I had intended. I find 4 or 5 minutes to be on the short side though. Maybe 7 or 8. No more than 8 anyway (on average).


2. Memory: Mega Man games are hard. Not exactly. It’s not the stages which are difficult, you can usually get to the boss after three of four continues (about a dozen deaths) at most.

It’s the bosses which are hard. The gap in difficulty between the boss and the stage are sometimes really wide.

Conclusion: Make harder stages but easier bosses so they are both more balanced.

3. Memory: Power ups did very little to help. Fact: Some power ups are plain too strong. The “E” tank is a game breaker for me. It more or less allows you to just rush a boss without any skill and win. I don’t want that.

Using a robot’s weak point really makes WAY too much of a difference. It should make the fight easier, not give you an automatic win. It takes the fun away.

Conclusion: No “E” tank equivalent in STG. Bosses won’t have damage weakness. Instead they will be easier to beat with certain weapons because those weapons have a certain range or area of effect.


4. Memory: Mega Man has some really good design: Well, it depends. Most of the time it’s good but sometimes not so much.
The only thing which frustrates me in Mega Man is the instant death spikes/pits. It’s not fun, too punishing. I prefer heavy damage and being teleported where you were.

Being damaged allows you to walk on spikes. It doesn’t make sense. It’s a glitch to be exploited.

Being damaged discharges your charged shot. I like this.

Conclusion: No instant death in STG. Falling on spikes damages you whether you just got damaged or not. Discharge charged shot when hurt.


5. Memory: Mega Man has some really good design part 2:

Some notes I took while playing the game through screenshots:













Kickstarter:
This is also where I am investing time. We’re getting closer to the target. One variable I need to determine is how much I want to set aside for rewards and shipping. Seems difficult to foresee as I have no clue where the backers will be from.

Art:
At the moment, I’m looking for a good bitmap font for the game. Couldn’t find something that really struck me as being excellent so far or fitting to STG.

Narrative:
I’ve talked a short while with Sahand about the narrative. We brainstormed a bit and I’m starting to get a better idea as to where I’d like to go with this.

I’d like the antagonist to be a type of bread/pastry too. Doctor Donut (too plain), Calamity Croissant (too hard to say), half-baked baguette (not interesting), The Doom Donut (funny, better than the other ones), Cortex Croissant (I like the cortex part, I’d like the antagonist to be super smart but croissant, again, is hard to say, unless it gives an exotic touch to the character…?)

Aaaaaaaannnnd that's it!