I am very aware that you have a strange distaste towards humans and the concept of anthropomorphic characters fighting/killing eachother in video games but I don’t think you should try making it the game creators issue as it’s their project, not yours.
Your beliefs may be a bit questionable at times but I don’t think you should apply it to someone else’s game in all honesty and respect.
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Quick progress report, I’ve got part of the second level laid out, and implemented lava.
When implementing Lava, I was thinking hard about the transformations I currently have and the ones I plan on having in the future. I kinda came to the conclusion that I’m not very happy with the direction the water balloon transformation is heading, it’s just very “Spray this to get rid of obstacle” so far.
A lot of the better transformations I have in mind all have movement based puzzles and challenges, they feel more like tools to help you navigate through the level, rather than a key to open up a door. I want to lean into that more and give the water balloon a better movement based mechanic.
I was planning on having a transformation that allows the player to be able to go beneath the surface of the water and traverse underwater, maybe I could give that mechanic to the water balloon transformation?
I probably won’t get a chance to work on the game again until next weekend, so progress will probably continue to be slow. Hopefully I’ll have something more interesting to share eventually.
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Not much of an update here, but I have tweaked the Water Balloon transformation a BUNCH, as well as fixed a lot of stuff that come from the drastic changes. Also fixed some bugs related to water, as well as gave each transformation a unique state when in water.
I still got a couple of water related stuff to add or tweak, but I think the most important things have been dealt with.
I am generally a lot more happy with how the water balloon transformation is now. On top of the already existing moveset on land, it can now maneuver through the water like a reverse Blimp transformation!
The “swallowed by a fish” transformation had to get merged into the water balloon transformation sadly, but I still plan on having this fish be in the game though.
Another big thing I got done, is implementing a new transformation, I won’t say what it is but I think it came out well so far. I still got several smaller things to work on before it can really shine, but I think act 1 of the next level might be functional sooner than I thought.
OH and I was wondering how to deal with this issue today, but I was asking myself how should I handle objects and basic enemies being in water. Should they be destroyed upon contact like in the WarioLand games, or should all enemies and objects swim or float in the water; and if they were to continue existing once in the water, how can the player get them out? I’m just worried about bugs and whatnot so this is probably something I wanna get situated before working more on Act 2.
I think this problem mainly just applies to basic enemies who weren’t meant to be in water, obviously I’m gonna make aquatic and floating enemies made for the water, I’m just trying to figure out what to do with entities who weren’t made with that in mind.
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Progress report on the next level, the level prototype is almost done!! I thought about rushing it an getting a build out, but I decided to wait another week or more. Act 1 and Act 2 are beatable at the moment though!
I added the other additional stuff needed to make Act 1 feel a little more unique, like spawnboxes, rising lava, and a new, gooey enemy. Same for act 2, which is quite a contrast to act 1; a few new enemies and obstacles, and a lot of adjustments to get it working.
I still need to implement the expansion for the new transformation, I’ve just been doing measurements and making mockups to figure out how I want Googal to grow in this state.
I’m going to be really curious what you all think about the body’s form for this, it’s different and took some experimenting, but I’m liking how it’s turning out.
Speaking of transformation mockups, I’m wanting to create better mockups for the transformations before the next build, since I feel like it’s been stuck with the bare minimum for long enough. They’ll probably still be lacking some animations and sprites, but at least they’ll be way more enjoyable to look at.
Same goes for a lot of the new enemies I’ve added, they’re just reusing existing sprites, and I’d like to draw them some real mockups.
Oh, and I kinda figured out the enemies in water problem. It’s not the most pretty solution, and may be changed in the future, but it works decent enough.
Hoping to get a build out there soon, since I haven’t done one in a while, but it’ll probably take a bit to properly set things up.
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I’m back, sorry for being gone a while, but I think it may be another week or two before the next build. I did not get to work on this nearly as much as I thought I would; being busy, and also getting distracted with a stinky little side project, kinda threw me off a little on development.
I’ve made mockups for most transformations, and the new enemies, I just need to make mockups for the fat transformation and then I should be good to go. I’ve thought about tweaking how the fat transformation functions a little, but I’mma wait on that.
All I need to do is make the fat transformation mockups and place collectibles and enemies throughout level 2, and it should be ready to go? Act 1 and Act 2 in this new level is pretty much fully functional, so I don’t really know what to add onto it until I get some feedback on the new level.
I do wanna apologize for things taking so long, and for the state of the game being in this rough, prototype state for a while now (And it’s going to continue to be in this rough state for even longer). Hopefully the new transformation and enemy mockups, as well as the new level, will make up for it.
Obviously I haven’t really had much of a deadline, but considering how slowly things are moving, I think getting a prototype of level 3 would be a good goal to try to reach before the end of the year.
I don’t think I have any concept sketches to share, so here’s a sneak peak at a few of the mockups.
16 Likes
The next build is finally out, 0.1.4, it took over a month but I finally got there.
I’m trying to think where to start, the biggest addition is the new level, SUMMER, which includes two acts, a new transformation, and multiple new enemies and mechanics. There are also a few updated mockups and sprites, so hopefully you all have fun looking at those.
I’m very curious to see what everyone thinks of these additions, and the current state of the game.
Big ol' Summary
- Added a new level with two acts (One act is locked on default)
- Added a new transformation
- Added two fishy enemies, a slime enemy, and the sponge puppy enemy
- Implemented unlockable acts, where a level changes when a certain act is beat, opening a path to a new act
- Spawners, to spawn an enemy or scene when set conditions are met
- Added lava
- Many adjustments made to the water balloon transformation and water in general
- A transformed player damaged in water will return to the surface
- Made new and improved mockups for all transformations
- Simple mockups for projectiles and enemies
- Added the ability to delete save files
- Squashed many, many bugs ;_;
This is also the first time an act in a level must be unlocked before being able to complete it. It’ll be tough for people to notice without cutscenes and stuff, but if you complete a specific act, it’ll unlock another and alter the level that act is in.
I also added the ability to wipe save data. I haven’t touched the save/load function so you can still use your old saves, I just figured people might want this feature if they wanna test the Level/Act unlocks.
So yeah, I’m glad I got to this point. I’ve still got a long ways to go, but I feel like I’m a few steps closer. I hope you all enjoy what I’ve got so far, and feedback is always more than appreciated!!
(ALso I don’t know if you guys would prefer if I include the itch link in every update post, or if yall are fine going to the top post to get the link >~>)
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For the link…meh? It doesn’t really matter to me, and it isn’t that difficult to just have it autoscroll to the top. Regardless, it feels like a distinct improvement from the previous builds; that month you took was worth it.
I did run into a pretty weird bug, though. I was trying to go through the narrow water passage to the right in Summer, but I got jammed in and couldn’t move, as is standard. Then I got hit by one of the swordfish, both knocking me free and bringing me down to 0 HP. I was then teleported back to the top of the water, showing me with the fat sprite as if it had started the death sequence, and could move, but only for a couple seconds, and then I couldn’t move, and the enemy attacking me didn’t do anything to me either. My best guess is that the teleport back to the water surface somehow screwed with me dying.
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Ok so I was able to recreate this bug easily, so I think I got an idea of what’s going on.
I’ve had this problem before, where the player won’t die if they reach 0 HP while in a transformed state, and I patched it thinking a dealt with it completely.
However, what seems to be happening here, is that the player being teleported to the waters surface seems to be canceling out the dying state (With a forced swim state). That’s why you are able to move around normally afterwards.
Also the getting stuck part was probably just poor raycast and collider placements, I should’ve tested all of the transformations to make sure they properly detect when the player is stuck.
This is super helpful though, I’ll look into it the next free day I get and see if I can fix it!
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Finally bit the bullet and made some fanart of the wobbly goo gal herself. :>
Excellent updates, dude!
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OOOUUGH THIS IS AMAZING!!! Thank you so much, I’m glad you enjoyed the update!! ^w^ <3
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Updated the game to 0.1.41, just a small bug patch update fixing the issues above.
- The player will now be ko’d properly whenever they reach 0 hp and teleport to the water surface
- Transformed player cannot get stuck anymore, and clipping with the world will end transformation more reliably this time
So what happened, I could’ve just slapped some bandaid in the issue and got things working, but this bug revealed how much of a flaw there was with how I set up liquid detection in my game. So I just went ahead and reworked the whole deal, and now I don’t have to worry about this being an issue again.
However, there are other bits of codes that behaves similarly to the old liquid detection (forcing a state onto the state machine, regardless of any other conditions), and while they are not causing any issues at the moment, I’ll have to keep an eye out and see if any problems emerge from that.
Also, for getting stuck, I realized that what I had going at the moment was not going to work out. So I replaced it with another method, which seems to work way more reliably. Again, there’s the small possibility that the player will get stuck due to a forced state cancelling the transformation ending process, but we’ll see.
I was gonna wait to see if people found any more issues that needed to be dealt with, but I feel like this bug was problematic enough to where I just needed to fix it and get the bug-fixed version out there asap.
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Played the newest update and MAN I’M loving the silly spongedog and the new transformation. It’s fun seeing whatever comes next in all this, though mostly enjoying all the new enemies that drop on occasion.
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Little progress report to kick off November.
I got started one the third level, well, now I’ve completed a good chunk of it actually. Act 1 in this level is pretty much done(??), I’ll just have to see how everybody feels about it but it may need worked in the future (I think that could be said with all the levels in my game though).
I added a few variants of certain enemies, but the only new one so far is this snozzlenose dude. I’ve also implemented a new transformation, I just gotta do a little fine tuning to it but it’s mostly put together.
I feel like I’ve been on a good pace, hopefully I can get it done and out there this month. This level probably has the hardest platforming challenges yet, so it’ll be a good way to stress test the game so far.
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he looks like a worm on a string and I love him. delightful creature.
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