Dev Diary - 16 Jan

11 JAN 2021

After much deliberation, I realized it was best to lower the player’s jump more. It feels punishing that his current jump made it so that he went just barely above the second highest block but still didn’t make it. It almost gives it the feel that the player missed or messed up somehow. Lowering the player’s jump by just a fraction was enough to make everything feel as natural and heavy as it looks without changing the level design too much. A lot of playtesting and moderate changes were necessary to ensure the gameplay was not impacted.

12 JAN 2021

A lot of playtesting showed that my safe fall areas really didn’t come across properly to the players. I figured having a big empty hole to jump down was unusual for the game, and therefore taught them that they could probably survive it, and while they did eventually come around to wanting to give it a look, I didn’t like that it seemed so offputting. Instead, I changed it to a moving platform that breaks on contact and sends the player falling down to their new location. This works well in multiple ways, because it excuses why they wouldn’t take fall damage and pushes them along the right direction.

13 JAN 2021

I’ve been really struggling trying to come up with a good boss fight’s final form. I’ve gotten better at programming over the year, so I know I could come up with something crazy like lazerbeams flying all over the place and the ship exploding or grenades or all that fun jazz, but I think the game teaches you a bit too well that nothing is ever going to change, and so I shouldn’t throw a curveball the player doesn’t know how to handle last minute. They get bullets, they get ducking, they get platforms, and they get electricity. If I had the theme that one or two new elements were introduced per level it wouldn’t be so bad, but because nothing changes for 4/5 of the game, I just don’t like the idea of teaching them something brand new last minute. Instead, I’m working on trying to incorporate the electric traps into the final form so that it’s familiar but challenging.

The trouble is, I am now very.. very good at this game after playing it for 3 hours a day every day for a year, so I’m not a great judge of balance. Instead, I think I’ll get the basics working how I think they should, then send out a few alpha builds to see what players think about difficulty. Even showing a gif to one of my playtesters made them pale looking at the pattern of the boss. I could beat it, but even I found it a challenge, which means it’s borderline impossible for the average player. Whoops!

14 JAN 2021

I’m at the point where I’m happy with the boss fight. Now, everything that needs to be added will be strictly cosmetic, such as cutscenes to transition from one phase to another. Additionally, there is a life pickup for the first time in the game that will give the player 1 more life upon entering the room. Once they have picked it up, it does not return in subsequent loads. This will also remove the first guard which triggers the intro cutscene, because nobody likes boss fight cutscenes after losing.

(had a bit of a bug with the falling platform. It's better now, I promise!)