BLOG ENTRY 45 - 8.2.024

DEV STATUS

I’ve had quite a year working on the prototype, I’ve barely used the page or blogged. That’s what happens when you’re cookin’ on a nearly daily basis. Since the Gamacon 2023 event I’ve been working non-stop learning how to fix the games major problems, not the lack of polish but rather making sure the mechanics feel good and that you understand that you have powers, a metric ton of bugs and little issues that just made the game feel more uncooked than it actually is.

This has had me swapping between multiple disciplines just to fix issue by issue. Some are animation, some are code, some are game design, etc etc. Anyone who has had to multi-class will tell you it’s hard to keep switching between each type of mindset required to fix or improve any one thing. It’s been maddening some times.

The good news is that I’ve made a lot of progress, from the way the game looks to the way it feels to play, and most of all, making a boss to finish off the demo! It’s almost done and I couldn’t be more proud about how far it’s come. I’ve said this many times before but there’s just such a good feeling when the thing you designed in your head comes to fruitiion and you see it, “Working as Intended”. Those words never felt so good.

PEACEKEEPER PROTOTYPE

This boss is meant to finish the demo, either you take it down, or it takes you down, and it WILL try to kill you. I’m still tweaking the way the boss uses the abilities in order to get to that near perfect sweet spot. but so far I’ve gotten pretty close. When it is actively attacking or defending it feels challening enough that you feel like you earn the kill, what it needs now is a bit of spacing out the abilities as well as believable movement, as the animations are not working properly and I can’t get it to repeat it’s ability suite.

Designing and Implementing this boss has been quite the journey specifically because it is the bite-sized version of what game dev is, and because i’ve had it in my mind for so long it was a matter of figuring out how to get that feeling of getting hunted down by a robot 5x times your size would feel like in game. You can present a boss in a bunch of different ways but the way the fight feels is what is important, at least I believe that. Here’s a quick run down of it’s ability suite.

TURRET VOLLEY

Will track the player and fire repeatedly until it runs out of ammo. Current fire rate feels good but it needs just a little bit more tweaking, in order to really make it feel like those scenes in sci-fi shows where you just gotta take cover and hope you don’t get hit.

ACTIVE SHIELD

Boss puts up a shield that will absorb damage until it runs out of energy. if the player breaks the shield I want to reward the player by having The Peacekeeper stunned and have you run up and stab one of it’s mechanical legs. This will take me a bit of brain power as I have to program animation syncing, in order to make it feel cool. Kino even.

MAJOR AREA DENIAL

The PeaceKeeper will fire off electric salvo rounds that electrify and area, distrupting shields and doing damage to the player. similar to what the player can do if they use their ultimate ability and create Plasma Areas of effect. For this ability I need to create an animation that shows the robot spinning and tossing out these projectiles. Animation is by far the most difficult part of game development for me, I think I’m getting bettwer but we’ll have to see if I can get this through the finish line.

THE OL’ RELIABLE.

Hired a 3d modeler to bring the vision of the Ol’ Reliable to life. We had some sketches and ideas for what the gun was supposed to look like. and after a few rounds of iteration we finally have full original 3D asset for the game.

This model really shows of the aesthetic we’re trying to create with the Plasmapunk look. I’m still working on integrating the animations in order for the character to interact with the animation loops properly. but so far it looks realy awesome in game.

DEMO FIXES AND QUALITY OF LIFE UPGRADES

As I mentioned earlier, after Gamacon with all the feedback we got from players and devs, I felt that it was necessary for me to get on my coding had and just fix everything that I could. I have still been getting a lot of help from Ryan Laley, as far as fixing bugs and figuring out tricks that can solve issues. I have cleaned up a lot of spaguetti code as well, making the game more efficient, less messy, less spagoot.

WEAPONS.

Weapons now display ammo count correctly with a different UI display for each, allowing the player to clearly see if they need to reload.

Reload now plays animation correctly and stops player from shooting during reload animation.
If player spams the fire button the weapon will automatically reload after several dry fire attempts. Once Active reload is implemented this will be a good way to reward the player for nailing the reload animation sequence.
Switching weapons now sets the player in the appropriate pose with each weapon type, some animations are a little bugged and need readjusting, but you know feel like you’re firing a different weapon rather than just holding a different mesh and that’s it.
Picking up ol’ Reliable immediately sets the weapon and animation pose to be ready to fire.
Fixed and issue that was blocking mouse look visibility and therefore making you aim incorrectly. Weapons now fire in the direction you are aiming correctly.

ENEMIES

Enemies no longer smear visually when dying from a damage over time effect, which would set the hit direction to 0 as it was attached to the enemy itself.
Melee tracking feels a little better, I still need to fix the issue that they do not re-adjust and continue to pursue you if you’re not within melee range.
Peacekeeper boss being set up for demo fight

ENVIRONMENT

Set new global illumination and skybox settings. Enhances atmospheric feeling of “Sci-fi”
Improved several issues with level design and interactions that were not working properly
Using Light as a means to convey information and interactivity has become the new art style, until we can get an Art director or Technical Artist to help polish the visuals.
Terrain that blocked visibility was fixed and improved camera placement in order to avoid blocking the players sight.
Fixed musical triggers to play properly when transitioning to new area.
Created “Scenic Triggers” that will adjust camera to show off environment and/or boss.

NEXT STEPS

My priority for the moment has been to get this boss working as it should. If I can’t get it to walk I just just make it an orbital cannon aimed towards the player. Nothing wrong with a static boss I guess. Big turret still hurts. But that’s a last case scenario if fixing the animations and walking/aiming at the same time takes too much effort.

Next is improving the melee combat as well as creating the animation sync code so you can finish off enemies and do cool attacks against bosses when you have the advantage. Fromsoft games have really set the bar for what bosses should feel like when you fight them. I hope I can learn how to tap into that secret kino sauce that makes things feel as awesome as they do.

If I can learn the recipe, I can recreate it.

Still Cookin’ Hard.

Daniel “Freaky” Aguilar

Game Designer

Plasmapunk Studios

Cookin' Takes a While, Boss...