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Devlog 72 & 73: Second Double Combo






I’ve probably not worked as hard on the game before as I did this week: since the game show was this saturday, and there was a bit of waiting for the new video, I’ve pretty much fixed around 60 things in the span of about 2 evenings and a bit. The game is so much better now though, it really feels like we’ve taken a big step this week. I’m not posting everything here, obviously

Characters:
Completely changed the butterfly; he now drops butter cubes when you spawn him and flies along for a while.
Given the player some more air control

Enemies:
Changed the copter’s values speed and health wise a bit
completely changed the way the bossfight works, he is a lot more predictable now

Systems
Added an experience bar


Gui, hud and all that beautiful nonsense
Nothing, I think


Sound
Nothing, I think

Details and Effects
You now have a maximum of 6 lives
Game is now fullscreen
Redid ending sequence
damage numbers are bigger
grappling hook is a bit shorter now

Levels
Added charge sockets again

Fixed bugs
Player doesn’t get invincible anymore after having used a checkpoint
Enemies don’t go into walls anymore
enemie respawn always now
fixed some music and sound bugs
enemies now don’t shoot at you when in a fridge
missing the duck doesn’t screw you over anymore, if you fall in the water you respawn at the beginning along with the duck
lagg after dying isn’t there anymore
respawning in the wall with the duck isn’t there anymore
duck doesn’t disappear when you jump on it
game over screen isn’t endless

-And tons more


Known bugs
None for now

See you next week! :D








Happy belated Thanksgiving, for all of those out there who celebrated!  I had a lovely time with my family for the past week, and it was a much needed time of rest!

Even though I was on a mini ‘break’ to have familial time at my home away from home, I still managed to crank out a few SFX for this past week.  This week involved making the subtle, yet necessary sounds to add life to the game.  Aside from “gaining a life,” the SFX involved simple aspects of the gameplay, such as water droplets, bubbles popping, and exhausted/low health animations.  These types of SFX - especially the former two of the three listed - are often taken for granted.  Most likely, gamers plow through games hearing very apparent SFX (such as combat noises or footsteps) and make note of them in their head.  The SFX I created this past week and will continue to create into the upcoming week are very ambient, but absolutely necessary to create a truly living world.

I’m aiming to complement the exciting gameplay of Super Toaster X with an environment that comes to life through various animations’ sound effects.  Sometimes the simplest dripping of water can make all the difference!

Have a good week, everyone!  I’m looking forward to making a huge chunk of effects this week.  Onward to productivity!

Cheers :)







I mostly did administrative stuff this week. Not much else to say really.



Devlog 73





I must say, this week was a lot slower than the past weeks I’ve been working on this game, was pretty busy with school and still kindof tired from the rush we had to make last week. I’m also not sure if next week’ll be very thrilling because of lots of other things, including my birthday, but I’ll try to add as much as possible :)
Anyway, here’s the rather small changelog for this week:

Characters:
Lowered butter fly butter dorp amount
increased blaster damage
Pan can now jump and charge his beam at the same time

Enemies:
enemies are now immobilized longer when hit
copter reloads slower
copter has more momentum now

Systems
Nothing this week


Gui, hud and all that beautiful nonsense
you can now exit the key config menu, back to the controller selection

Sound
Nothing this week


Details and Effects
the grapple rope now bends when Pan swings
The xpbar now gradually fills instead of jumping to one spot
shooting bubbles now makes them burst
removed the remote controller staying behind whenever pan teleports back

Levels
changed charge shot sign’s position

Fixed bugs
fixed a transition bug
fixed a teleport bug
fixed not being affected by gravity with an exact vertical speed of -1



Known bugs
A lot. An incredible amount, really

See you next week! :D









This past week was quite intense with the amount of work put into the Sound Effects.  Long story short, some of them had to be revised on top of new sounds being made.  Knowing that the Christmas/Holiday season is upon us, I want to put in as much time as I can afford before the end of December and the beginning of January.  

I have to admit - I was pretty challenged this past week!  Some sound effects were harder to replicate than others.  For example, recording/editing the noise of streaming water is quite simple when making a sound effect.  Record, add some BitCrush, perhaps some pitch shift to offset the overly ‘natural’ sound of the recording, and a sound effect is created.  However, sounds such as an enemy exploding or the sound of a metal door sliding open can be quite difficult to record and create.  Often times the sound effects end result (such as the door sliding open) requires recording a sound so far from the actual purpose.  Let me put it this way: in making the door sliding open, a door was not used in the recording process!

That’s the fun and joy of sound design; it’s all about creative ways to replicate sounds, not necessarily finding the exact source!  I’m not sure I can find anything that ‘explodes’ in my back yard, either!

Ultimately, this was a very productive week for me in the realm of SFX production for the game!

P.S. - Fun fact.  I used a plastic water container’s twist cap to create the sound of a duck.  I was in a situation so far from my recording equipment when I ‘discovered’ the sound.  My associates in the same room looked at me with complete confusion as my eyes widened, continually twisting my cap back and forth, all while telling myself, “Oh my goodness. This is PERFECT for the duck sound effect!”







So, as promised, two devlogs this week.

Although I wasn’t there, according to the person representing the game at the Expo (Goulven), the game was a big success. Then again, it’s not like people will tell you directly in person if they don’t like something about the game. So in the end you get an inflated positive impression.

I hope something like a game show is presented somewhere in Quebec in the future. I’d really like to introduce the game myself.
So this week has been about tweaking a lot of things. Despite all the work we put in fixing the build for the expo, there were still 52 things to fix post-expo. That’s a lot but the person who did the testing was very thorough and tried a lot of things to push the boundaries and see where things would crash.

Graphic-wise, I added a few more ingredients to the game to collect. I also added some new animations:










...and a lot more. You can now break walls to access new areas for one thing. But yeah, more art.

The rest of the week was spent doing administration for me; reworking our deadline system, cleaning up the spreadsheets (a lot of them were messy/not used anymore), watching gameplay videos and listing bugs and things to change too.

It’s encouraging that the KS demo has progressed so much. Now it’s mostly about refining the already existing gameplay mechanic and make the whole thing look pretty. I’m always bothered when I watch gameplay videos and look at how empty everything is. I can’t wait to fill the screens up with good looking stuff.

One thing I’m working on at the moment is toning down stuff. In other words, removing unnecessary movements and actions which are not very useful. The idea is to better exploit the already existing gameplay mechanics instead of adding new ones.
This is why I’ve given up with the idea of playing as many different characters. It would be too much to be put simply. We’ll just stick with Pan and do our best to make the experience memorable.

I’ve also given up on summoning members of the breadsistance for the same reason, it’s too much.

The idea I’m playing around at the moment is the special abilities. I had intended to have 50 of those but looking back now, that’s way too much. It’s not adapted to the game I’m working on.

So instead we’ll stick to one special ability (but a well refined one) for each stage cleared in the game.
The difference I’m looking for is what will determine which special ability you’ll get when you clear a stage.
Instead of having bosses give you the ability, I’m thinking the members of the Breadsistance will.

I’d like for the member to be rescued with each stage to be randomly determined. This means that you wouldn’t know which power up you’ll get by beating a stage.

I’m not sure if it’s a good idea or not however. I’d need to make sure that every power-up is really balanced and useful in their own rights in order to make sure that players aren’t resentful or disappointed if they get an ability that sucks more than the others.