Danger Action Speed Hero **Update #002**
by Jake
Hey everybody. I've decided to stay on the visual side this week again and keep making graphical implementations such as more tiles and backgrounds. Though some time has been spent on programming a new screen shake function, and other tweaks and fixes. Unfortunately I did not have the time (due to being solo-dev right now) to start on the Hero Management room! But this following week should be dedicated to that! Anyways, here are some updates since Wednesday.
New level size/format system and backgrounds:
The room size-framework and vars have been set up to easily be expanded and modded. We have only been playing around with three different formats so far. Now there's a bunch and it's more than enough for now.
(we can choose between seven different formats now)
Until Thursday I did not have the time to work on the background system which I thought was a bigger challenge than it turned out to be. I started working on it yesterday and was extremely happy to see everything work out today during the Saturday open dev stream on the Baby Duka Twitch Channel.
The design possibilities are exponential with the number of options of level sizes. In the dev stream it became clear that, especially, the more square formats are great for the complex and puzzle-like structures. Let's see.
New cornered tiles:
I've had to begin with less tiles in the Blocksets than we are actually in need of. I think it's good during prototyping to avoid going to deep into stuff. Like the tiles. They are obviously going to rule this game so I have been working on them with a humble and easy approach. So today I added an extra tile to the ground set: the corner stone. All Blocksets consist of a Ground Blockset, Platform Blockset, Tool Set and Deadly Blockset so far, one more will probably be added for the next Saturday stream (2.24)) I wanted to move on and do the classic tileset-style finish, where all the inverted corners and stuff fit so nicely together, but there wasn't enough time today. I'm really looking froward to put in more Blocksets like walls and background elements/decoration/atmosphere, liquid tiles and wow! the list is long because our brains are big. Good thing we've got time!
(new tiles to allow more combinations and shapes)
New screenshake:
I wanted to learn and use the rotational + translational screenshake movement instead of only translational (x and y popping around random coordinates) which works and it's okay but the rotational movement added to the shake, feels a lot better. On top of that (from watching Squirrel's amazing 2016 GDC session "Math for Game Programmers: Juicing Your Cameras With Math") I wanted to also add the trauma^2-based function which, with a random seed, smooth and realistic noise (I used perlin, found these great scripts by Warren Snyder on the Game Maker Marketplace called Perlin Noise 1D) makes the exponential numbers shake the screen in a much more interesting way, I think. I explained a bit about it today in the stream, but I suggest you click the "Math for Game Programmers"-link above and let the real expert explain the idea behind the equations. Slides included, both 2D and 3D, next level stuff. Basically the amount of shake is depending on how much 'trauma' is inflicted on the object which controls the camera. So if I'm slapped by an enemy it causes a little trauma, but if I'm slapped four times and land in an explosion it's TRAUMAMAMAATATA!! This script (trauma_shake();) is very powerful and will of course need to be tweaked as we go.
(both rotational and translational camera shake with exponential movement, new shake)
(translational only with linear movement, old shake)
IndieDB!
It's really good to see that DASH is doing well here on IndieDB and these weekly updates seem to be good for both the community and development!
PROJECT STATUS: Waiting for the heroes to arrive!
As you can see the process is very organic, fun and intuitive. Of course there is a production plan and design document, but the feeling of freedom and creativity is very solid during these work days which is good because that's what you, the player, should feel when playing the game!
Next week we will hopefully see some work on the Hero Management room + a new type of Blockset!
Watch the development LIVE on the Baby Duka Twitch channel every Wednesday and Saturday! Updates here both days as well.
YOU LOOK DASHING!
- Jake
NEWSLETTER on the new website ► babyduka.com
Open development stream ► twitch.tv/BabyDuka (Wednesdays 8 pm GMT, Saturdays 6 pm GMT)
