Weekly Progress Report #28
Last week I mentioned that I was planning to not update the demo for a few weeks, so that I could work on getting the new content ready for the Early Access launch. As I worked on the game I ran into a few serious bugs that also affected the demo, so I actually ended up uploading new demo builds a few times. It's not that difficult to swap back and forth, and I've streamlined the process a bit, so I think my new policy will be to only update the demo build if something major is added, or if an important bug has been fixed.
After some initial hesitation (and a lot of Valheim), I finally got around to restyling the 35 levels I had made previously that weren't included in the demo. I was initially worried that because the level order isn't totally finalized, I would have to restyle levels multiple times, and that would mean a lot of wasted effort on my part. Eventually I decided to frame the situation a different way: "The new levels aren't currently playable [the lighting and colors make them difficult to look at]. If you want to figure out the order, you need to actually playtest with them, so just style them already." This was enough to get me to just apply some "default" styles to the remaining 35 levels. It also didn't take very long, only a few hours in the morning, so even if I have to do it again a few more times it's not that big a deal.
The next major thing to do is to re-calibrate all the 2 and 3 star times for all 56 levels. I go back and forth about how much work I think this will be, but I just need to do it, and I think it should only take a few hours to figure out appropriate completion times. Wish me luck!
I've decided to change the day of the week that I post weekly updates. From now on I'll be posting updates on Wednesdays. Posting on Saturdays has been alright, but I found that I would only work on the update posts and not actually work on the game. Changing to Wednesday should be good at forcing me to quickly make these announcements (I'll need to finish them before I go to work), and will totally free up my Saturdays to work on game content. Also #wishlistwednesday.
After some initial hesitation (and a lot of Valheim), I finally got around to restyling the 35 levels I had made previously that weren't included in the demo. I was initially worried that because the level order isn't totally finalized, I would have to restyle levels multiple times, and that would mean a lot of wasted effort on my part. Eventually I decided to frame the situation a different way: "The new levels aren't currently playable [the lighting and colors make them difficult to look at]. If you want to figure out the order, you need to actually playtest with them, so just style them already." This was enough to get me to just apply some "default" styles to the remaining 35 levels. It also didn't take very long, only a few hours in the morning, so even if I have to do it again a few more times it's not that big a deal.
The next major thing to do is to re-calibrate all the 2 and 3 star times for all 56 levels. I go back and forth about how much work I think this will be, but I just need to do it, and I think it should only take a few hours to figure out appropriate completion times. Wish me luck!
Change to Weekly Update Posts
I've decided to change the day of the week that I post weekly updates. From now on I'll be posting updates on Wednesdays. Posting on Saturdays has been alright, but I found that I would only work on the update posts and not actually work on the game. Changing to Wednesday should be good at forcing me to quickly make these announcements (I'll need to finish them before I go to work), and will totally free up my Saturdays to work on game content. Also #wishlistwednesday.
Changelog
- Game now pauses when the Steam overlay is opened.
- Fix bug where opening leaderboard locked out some controls after completing a level.
- Update Unity version to 2020.4.1f1
- Fixing production builds (they were broken in strange new ways).
- Fix level entry being broken when not connected to Steam.
- Controller warning screen had the text "Button" displayed in the middle of the screen.
- Add level # and monospace editor fonts to Level Order editor.
- Update "Point and Shoot" level geometry.
- Add water tutorial level: "Splash".
- Remove difficulty display from level info UI (the difficulty rating was intended as a developer thing anyway).
- Fix bug where retry / exit level inputs could be broken if you crash -> exit level -> reenter level -> crash.
- Streamline transition back and forth from demo builds a little bit.
- Fix issue where jump and bump sound effects would play when speeds were very low.
- Tweak level order.
- Various level geometry updates.
- Prevent water splashes when level geometry is in the water.
- Experimented with new level color schemes.
- Fix bug where jumping into water multiple times (with Fish powerup) didn't trigger splash effect multiple times.
- Adjusted goal zone collider so that it picks up rolling characters more aggressively (you could stick your head inside a goal zone while rolling and it wouldn't count).
- Updated level geometry on 20+ levels.
- Adjust lighting and materials for 35 levels.