WooLoop News

Following the live stream QA Testing on Friday, we have sat down and rethought our approach towards the in-level instructions.

This has been the focus of this weeks work along with some minor bug fixing from the reports we found on Friday.

Bug Fixes:

• Spelling Mistakes corrected on the settings page.
  
• Fixed an FPS drop issue
  
• Re-Fixed 180degree instructions showing incorrectly
  
• Fixed the ability to zoom in further than the screen lets you
  
• Changed the UI for the head of the rope to make it always visible
  
• Changed the appearance of the Gallery name pop-ups to differentiate between them and the UI buttons.
  

After testing the new control system we are happy with the direction it takes the game feel but we know it needs tweaking to make it smoother. This is being looked at with 3 main points to address.

• Make the movement smoother/less snappy
  
• Address the camera movement making the player over-move if they are moving the mouse simultaneously.
  
• Find a better solution for pins that are far apart without forcing the game to zoom out.
  

We have discussed a method to address the in-level UI as currently, the UI often overlaps each other and simply making the UI smaller to prevent this makes it hard to read when zoomed out.
We are trialling a solution this week of adding a UI bar with "rope selection" to remove all of the clutter from the screen and only give the player one set of instructions at a time. Check back next week to see what progress we have on this.



Make sure you are following us on our Twitch channel to get notified when we go live again next Friday (25/11/2022)

Time this week has been split between 2 main parts of Game Development.
Bug Fixing and New Levels!

The bugs we found in the last live stream have all about been wrapped up! Most of the smaller bugs were addressed last week with the larger issues being corrected this week.
Bug Fixes and Changes:

• Screenpanning with the mouse has been adjusted for better corner control.
  
• Fixed leftover rope being stuck on screen on small routes.
  
• Fixed 180degree instructions showing incorrectly
  
• Tweaked large instructions to make them easier to read
  

These adjustments will be tested in the next QA pass, especially the instruction sizes as we need to find a sweet spot for readability.

Progress has continued in creating new levels as we move closer to release. We have timed how long it takes to make each level in preparation to make a more in-depth project plan that incorporates more accurate time scales for level creation. Here is another sneak peek!
*This is a work-in-progress level so you will likely see alterations before the game goes live.


Streaming will continue over on our Twitch channel this Friday. We have changed to a desk microphone in an attempt to improve the audio quality so please stop by and let us know what you think!



The first steps have been taken towards preparing what DLC we will be providing along with the content and pricing models. Stay tuned for more details!

Another very busy week! Our Stream on Friday helped us discover a number of bugs which we recorded for Rob to address. This week has been spent fixing the majority of these bugs along with more improvements to the UI and game controls.

Bug Fixes:

• The timer now resets when you New Game+ (NG+) a level
  
• You can now NG+ a level as often as you like without breaking the menu UI
  
• "Hide Level Names" now updates the currently loaded Gallery instantly
  
• Typo corrections
  
• Added a scroll bar to the settings page
  
• Adjusted the end-of-level animation to start according to the current zoom level
  

Other than fixes and improvement, we have finally begun work on new levels, here is a sneak peek!

As always with these update posts, this is a work-in-progress level so you will likely see alterations before the game goes live.


Streaming on our new Twitch channel appears to be much more interactive than on Steam.
We will continue streaming to both platforms simultaneously but if you want to get involved with the chat we highly recommend you follow us on Twitch to get notified when we go live!



Merch has arrived for testing! We are still making considerations and alterations before we make the merch available for purchase, keep an eye on our Website for when the merch is live.

Marketing is continuing at a steady pace in preparation for our full media outreach towards the end of the year.

Check out the broadcast on our store page or tune in over at Twitch to watch me QA Test the changes we have made over the past 2 weeks!

https://www.twitch.tv/toastielabs

It's been another very busy week for WooLoop development, so much so that the game has very notable, huge differences since last week!

Saving and Loading has been fully implemented and is ready to go, thorough testing is still required but this is a big step towards finalising WooLoop for release.

A number of Quality of Life improvements have been implemented this week too:

• Increased Instruction size and zoom levels
  
• QOL changes to screen panning
  
• Loop counter, % progress and timer
  

Ongoing bug fixing has been happening throughout as well as we address the number of bugs you reported during the Next Fest Demo.

One of the biggest changes we have made this week is to the pins, taking your feedback on board about being too colourful and distracting, we have made the pins match the game art on Steam as well as adding a gradient colour to highlight the route you are taking, see the GIF below as an example.


Please note this is still work-in-progress so expect to see changes before release.


Stop by our Twitch channel on Friday to watch us test all of the above changes plus more as we QA test the game live with chat interaction.



Progress on Merch is going ahead, we are currently waiting for test products to arrive in the office so we can check them before adding them to our Store page on our Website.

Marketing is ramping up alongside development as we prepare for the upcoming release. If you are a content creator interested in WooLoop, send us a message!