Devlog 3 - Pickups

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀While playtesting the game many people recommended adding pickups to the game. There were two types of pickups that immediately came to mind, those that act like coins giving points and those that give some sort of special ability or change the character’s form. Adding the coin-like pickups was an easy yes to adding to the game since it already goes along with all of the systems in the game and it enhances the risk and reward of the momentum mechanics in the game. The only real struggle would be balancing the point values of the coins so that they reward the player appropriately for the risk taken to get them.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Moving onto the powerup pickups. These are a lot more varied in their type and implementation based on the game. In our game we had two ideas for powerups, a powerup that provides invulnerability for a short amount of time and a powerup that provides a boost. The invulnerability proved to ruin the risk and reward for the game and make it so that the player was able to turn their brain off in a way that hampered the fun of the game. Meanwhile the boost powerup proved to be a solid addition that again added risk and reward to the game. Saving your boosts and using them tactically even added a new movement technique to immediately turn your character around, which enables the player to overcome one of the greatest restrictions in the character’s moveset.

Devlog 2 - Player Movement & Theme

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I decided that the best way to split up the different player states is in to a couple different angles. I started with the middle angle being 5, as a guess of 10 angles being enough for the player’s full range of movement. I took the angle range and split it up giving each one an x and y velocity (which I derived from a unit circle). After some testing with this, it was clear that I needed to remove angle 0 and angle 10, as this would make the player able to survive any challenge and be able to move fully horizontally. After Implementing movement I then attached a visual state to each of the angles and instantly had player “animations.” This was gratifying that it was such an easy implementation for player visuals.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Speaking of visuals, we needed to decide on a theme for the game. Currently it just looks like a paper plane in an abstract environment, but we need to make this game unique and lovable. This is where we as a team brain-stormed and figured the best theme we could go for is something to do with birds. We decided that the game would be about a baby bird falling from a nest, this explains the ability to glide, but not being able to fly. This also would make it so we could make the graphics cute and fun, or if we wanted to do we could make them dark and grim. We ultimately decided on cute and fun as it goes with the arcade-y feel.

Devlog 1 - Level Generation

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I started to develop the game with platform generation. My past experience told me that this would be harder and more important than figuring out the player movement. That may seem strange to most as player movement is more crucial to the enjoyability of the game, but this was mostly because I am familiar with player movement in all sorts of settings. I am, however, not as familiar with level generation, especially semi-random generation.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I contemplated how I would go about generating platforms and started by generating platforms of a fixed size every fraction of the screen on the y-axis. Then I implemented being able to have them alternate based on if they are odd or even numbered. Then I randomized the platform length within a set range, and bam platforms almost fully complete. I preemptively added hit detection (I tested it with my mouse instead of a player character), and called it a day on level generation.

Devlog 0 - Initial Concept

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Our team has spent this last week thinking of what sort of game we want to make, and why it would be appealing to anyone. We thought back to what games we like and what would be valuable to other people. After thinking back on tons of games we loved, we thought of the arcade experience and how much fun being able to pick up and play that style of game is. We wanted something fun and addictive, and so an arcade style game would be perfect. I remembered a mini game that I had played over a decade ago called paper plane. It was part of warioware on the gba. I knew this was a good starting place because it stuck out to me still to this day.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀We wanted to take the fun elements from this, but change it so that it is its own whole new experience. Our initial thoughts were on ways to add variety to the gameplay, but needing to resist the urge to over complicate the gameplay loop. We decided to add a risk and reward system that comes naturally from the way the player moves in the game. We developed the concept of having momentum built into the game. You must manage this in order to keep moving (and not crash and die). This would make the moment to moment gameplay have more variety and create new and interesting scenarios. But in order to push this idea even further we decided to add pickups that are often out of the way of the normal route the player takes. This would make it so there is more reason to risk losing moment for a higher point payout.