Lost Twins 2 News

Hey there, gamers!

The moment has arrived, and we're beyond thrilled to drop the curtains on our official gameplay trailer, marking the countdown to the big release in 2024!

Let's feast your eyes on the trailer that's been in the making. It's a glimpse into the heart and soul of what we've crafted for you all. The excitement's real, and we can't wait to share it.

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Greetings, intrepid adventurers! Today, we're thrilled to take you on a captivating journey into the intricate world of tutorial design for Lost Twins 2.

Our quest to perfect the tutorial experience began with a crystal-clear vision: to create a tutorial that seamlessly guides and empowers newcomers, offering a comprehensive introduction to the game without overwhelming them.

🌟 Setting the Stage 🌟

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From the very moment you set foot in Lost Twins 2, you'll find yourself immersed in an enigmatic lore that beckons you to explore. Our mission is to gently usher players into mastery of the game's controls. This initial experience, often referred to as the FTUE (First Time User Experience), serves as your inaugural encounter with the game's world. During this initiation, you'll become acquainted with the unique environment, learn the controls, and get a glimpse of the perplexing puzzles that will soon put your intellect to the test. These puzzles are designed to both captivate and confound, ensuring players are fully engaged and ready to unravel the mysteries that lie ahead.

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The tutorial is composed of two distinct layers, each playing a crucial role in preparing players for their grand adventure.

🌟The Basics 🌟
The first layer is all about mastering the fundamentals. Here, you'll learn the ropes of general character movements, how to seamlessly switch between characters, interact with the world around you, and even how to zoom in and out to discover the world's intricate details. This layer equips you with a solid foundation in the game's mechanics, ensuring you're well-prepared for the epic journey that awaits.

🌟The Art of Shuffling 🌟
The second layer delves into a pivotal aspect of our gameplay: the piece-shuffling mechanism. This core mechanic is essential for progressing through levels, so it's vital that you grasp its intricacies. By dividing the tutorial into these two layers, we strike a delicate balance. We provide you with a broad understanding of the game's mechanics, granting you the knowledge to embark on your adventure, while leaving room for your innate intelligence and problem-solving skills to shine as you advance through the game. This approach empowers you to explore and learn as you go, enhancing your sense of discovery and accomplishment.

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We're tremendously grateful for your unwavering support, and we can't wait to share more with you next week! Keep the adventure alive by following us on social media for all the latest updates.

Until then, stay curious and keep those gaming spirits high!

Best Regards,
The Playdew Team 🎮🌟🚀

Welcome back! Today, we're diving deep into one of our core gameplay features—the groundbreaking environment shuffling mechanic. In this devlog, we'll give you an inside look at how it works and the intricate design decisions that make it truly unique.

Lost Twins 2's defining feature is the environment shuffling mechanic. We've divided the entire game world into interconnected pieces that can be manipulated in various ways. These pieces can be connected or disconnected from any side—left, right, top, or bottom—when their sides match perfectly. Players have the ability to switch between different zoom levels while playing. In the zoomed-in view, they can perform actions like moving, jumping, climbing, and manipulating objects. However, when faced with an impassable obstacle such as a closed door, players can shift to the zoomed-out view and rearrange the environment pieces to create a path in the zoomed-in view. It's a gameplay mechanic like no other.

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Grid Complexity:
For most levels in Lost Twins 2, we've opted for a 2x2 grid, featuring three environment pieces and one empty slot for moving pieces around. While we could extend this to a 2x3 grid with five pieces or even a 3x3 grid with eight pieces, the complexity of the game would grow exponentially. Therefore, we've maintained the 2x2 grid for most levels to strike the right balance of challenge and accessibility.

Zoomed-Out View Design:
Creating the look of the zoomed-out view presented its own set of challenges. It needed to be simple, resembling a mini-map, allowing players to grasp the entire level without visual clutter. To achieve this, we've designed simplified icons for characters, interactable puzzle elements, collectibles, and environmental terrain. During zoom transitions, we smoothly shift from a zoomed-in 3D world to 2D icon-based assets while adjusting the camera field of view (FOV) from perspective to orthographic. This transition involved some trigonometric formulas to ensure a seamless shift.

Blending 3D and 2D Worlds:
Blending the 3D and 2D worlds seamlessly was another puzzle to solve. We achieve this by having one world fade out while the other fades in, with both meeting at 50% opacity. This blending process involves the use of alpha textures, strategic placement of black foregrounds, object scaling, and precise object positioning. These elements work together to give players the illusion of a smooth transition between the two worlds.

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As we conclude this devlog, we hope you've gained a deeper understanding of Lost Twins 2's innovative environment shuffling mechanic. It's a feature that challenges players to think creatively, strategize, and explore in ways they've never experienced before.

What are your thoughts on our environment shuffling mechanic? Let us know in the comments below!


Best regards,
Playdew Team

Welcome to the latest installment of our development diary! In this devlog, we're diving deep into one of the most exciting puzzle elements we've introduced in our ToyZone—the Bouncy Football. If you're familiar with our Boulder element, you'll find some intriguing similarities and a few exciting differences. You can revisit our blog on the Boulder element here for a quick refresher. So, grab a seat, and let's bounce right into it!

Much like the Boulder, the Bouncy Football serves multiple purposes within our game world. Players can use it to block pathways, drag it around, and even use it as a platform for reaching higher places or activating buttons to advance in the game. However, the key distinction lies in its physics. Not only did we design the Bouncy Football to complement the ToyZone's aesthetics, but we also made sure it presented a unique challenge for both our players and us as developers.

The Bouncy Football lives up to its name with physics that keep you on your toes. It's lightweight and, well, bouncy, making it quite a challenge to control precisely. Players must act swiftly, timing their jumps just right to hop aboard before the ball rolls off or takes an unexpected tumble. This dynamic adds a thrilling fast-paced element to the gameplay that keeps everyone on their toes.


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To achieve this bouncy behavior, we adjusted the physics material's 'Bounciness' parameter to 0.6, fine-tuning both dynamic and static friction to get the feel just right. However, creating this playful physics experience required more than simple parameter tweaks. We had to implement additional checks and constraints in our code to ensure the physics remained manageable. By carefully clamping the velocity and position of the Bouncy Football within certain bounds, we maintained control over its behavior, even with relatively low solver iterations to optimize performance.

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The Bouncy Football has been an exciting addition to our ToyZone, and we can't wait for you to experience it firsthand. Stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes looks, exciting reveals, and game development insights as we continue to work on crafting an unforgettable gaming experience.

Thank you for being a part of our journey. Until next time, keep gaming and keep bouncing!


Best Regards,
Playdew team

Let's dive into an exciting addition we've made to toyzone – the Airstream. As soon as a player steps into its captivating realm, they're whisked away, soaring through the air in the direction of a powerful airstream. These airstreams are conjured by none other than our trusty fans. However, activating these fans requires a bit of a scavenger hunt – players must hunt down scattered batteries and fit them into the fan's battery container. Once that's accomplished, it's a simple button press from any character to ignite the fan and set the airstream in motion. It's not just a mode of transportation; it's a thrilling way to reach previously unreachable areas within the game level.

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Each level features a unique airstream shape. To achieve this, we harnessed the power of Catmull-Rom splines. First, we outlined the basic points in our editor to define the desired shape, and from there, we generated a mesh along that spline. Then came the meticulous task of mapping UVs to match the length of the curved mesh. The final touch involved manipulating these UVs along the path to create the illusion of a continuous gust of wind emerging from the fan.

When it comes to the physics behind the Airstream, we didn't cut any corners. Alongside the mesh generation, we meticulously placed small cube trigger colliders along the airstream's path. The moment a player makes contact with one of these triggers, they enter a unique "flying mode" within the airstream. We diligently track the current collider index and apply force to the player's rigidbody to propel them from one collider to the next, creating a seamless flying experience. This exhilarating journey continues until the player reaches the final collider, at which point we gracefully transition back to the normal physics engine, complete with gravity.



We hope you're as thrilled about this exciting addition as we are. The Airstream not only enriches gameplay but also showcases the attention to detail and innovation we're pouring into our toyzone. Get ready to take flight and explore new horizons in our world!

Thank you for your ongoing support, and stay tuned for more exciting updates.

Best regards,
Playdew team