Hello Fellow Circuit Admirers,
We deeply appreciate the positive feedback, bug reports, and the unwavering support from our players. With the game's increasing popularity, curiosity has spiked regarding the intricate details of its history, creation, inspirations, and narrative.
As you may already be aware, we've responded to this curiosity by compiling a comprehensive collection of questions sourced from our community Discord. These answers are now available here, serving as a permanent record accessible to both new and seasoned players.
The responses are a blend of insights from both Antti and Dominic, mirroring the collaborative journey that shaped the game's inception. Hence, it's only natural that the answers encapsulate this collaborative spirit.
Okay enough context, here you go for the Part 2 of the Q&A as we got so many questions!
[h2]Find the Part 1 HERE![/h2]
Question #17: If the Circuits could eat, what would each of their favorite foods be?Antti/Dominic:
- Ray: Spicy instant noodles, the most punctual food.
- Trace: Fruit salad, refreshing and full of vitamins.
- Blade: Shaved ice, perfect snack for a warm day.
- Cable: Sushi, he'd modify his stun baton arm to have a pair of chopsticks.
- Bit: Hotdogs, easy to eat on the go!
- Medley: Burgers, the best food according to her!
- Crash: Tomato soup, comfort food, good for the soul.
- Hash: Coffee & plain toast, who’s got time for a proper meal?
- Kai: Pizza, always trying different toppings every week.
Question #17.5: What would be Kernel's favorite food?Antti/Dominic: Popcorn!
Question #18: What part of the game took the longest/was the hardest to develop, and why?Antti: Honestly, finetuning Kai's movement and actions. I wouldn't say they're perfect, but it was a long road to get things as good as they are now.
Question #19: What's the planet the game passes on, earth?Antti: A nameless planet somewhere out there. It likely would be inhabitable to humans.
Question #20: What was your favorite part of the game to implement/work on?Antti: Menus. They often tend to be more fun and straight forward to code than anything gameplay related.
Question #21: Which circuit would give the best hug?Antti: Medley would claim she gives them the best, but the real answer is Crash.
Question #22: So if Crash's upper body is a tube, how does he open his arms outward?Antti: Very carefully...? He'll bonk people's heads with those shoulders if he isn't careful!
Question #23: Will a physical version of the game ever release?Antti: Any decisions about physical versions would have to come from our publisher, PID Games.
Question #24: How would every circuit act like in a group chat?Antti: Decently civil, albeit possibly a bit chaotic, so I hope they get Crash to act as the group chat moderator if things get heated. Cable would probably only type ellipses in the chat as a response to anything Ray might be writing.
Question #25: Can Bit play the Keytar?Antti: He probably would boast that he can, despite never having touched one!
Question #26: How much playtesting was done for each and every level of Gravity Circuit?Antti: Can't say from the top of my head, since we had no way to track exact numbers, but I'd argue that a decent amount, across plenty many different builds of the game. Several stages saw decently sized revisions or touch ups to improve their designs, based on playtesting feedback. Highway, Warehouse/Cyberspace and Junkyard in particular had to go through some fairly major level layout changes from their initial versions.
Question #27: How often do you have to go back and optimise code? How did the code have to be changed to reduce the lag on consoles?Antti: Every once in a while, usually when any issues were noticed during the porting processes. However, due to a variety of circumstances, a good majority of the heavy-lifting for optimizations was done at the very tail-end of development. Ideally, would've liked to do those optimizations earlier on. We're looking to optimize things more after the immediate game issues (bugs, game crashes) are resolved.
Generally the optimizations that had to be done involved reducing the amount of CPU load on a per-frame basis. This was achieved by simplifying some collision related code, making certain things run only every other or so frame as opposed to every frame, implementing simpler collision detection mechanisms in some places, and adding some memoization wherever possible. There's more to be done, but most optimization fell into those camps.
Question #28: Were there any features or mechanics that were planned for the game, but ultimately scrapped and if so, what specifically and why?Antti: A couple to few more enemy types for the game's last few stages were thought up, but in interest of development time, they were dropped. They would have introduced a couple of new mechanics/obstacles to these stages, but they might have been a bit much to juggle on top of everything else that was going on.
However, the big thing that was dropped from the initial release was the level editor, simply because it requires more before it's in an acceptable state for more public use. All of the game's levels were made with said editor, but it has enough quirks or peculiarities that made it unsuitable for release. As such, in interest of getting the game out sooner, it became a post-launch feature we're trying to get done at a point or another. As of now, it's TBD when it would become available.
Question #29: As a musician who wants to experiment with the industry in the future, What was the process of getting the music in the game? Stuff like ideas, concepts, motifs, implementation, etc.Dominic: A handful of tracks that ended up in Gravity Circuit were composed almost 10 years ago, but were later on re-arranged or rather remade to fit the vibe of the final shipped product. When it comes to the ideas, I always try to imagine the location and the flow of the level, area or scene I'm writing music for, I'm a very visual person so being able to look at concept art, gameplay videos or just reference images helps a lot to get my creativity flowing.
Antti: As far as implementation goes, in Gravity Circuit, music tracks were generally split into two files: one for the intro of a track, and the other for the loop portion of a track. During playback, the game simply reads samples into a buffer from the active file, and determines if the currently playing file should loop or not when it reaches the end. When making games, you're usually better off using formats like OGG, rather than MP3. Larger companies may opt for more proprietary formats, too.
Question #30: Does the music exist in-universe?Antti: Medley did install those speakers in the City Center for a reason!... Not sure about the other areas. Does Kai carry a walkbot with him?
Question #31: What are the inspirations behind each Circuits' designs?
Kai: Cues were taken from works like Gundam, essentially turning those huge, humongous mecha designs to a smaller form factor. However, right from the get-go, we knew that he should have a three-pronged "V-fin", as his distinguishing feature on his head's design. This later served as the basis for the idea of a "Circuit", and how each major character in the game tends to wear one in one shape or form.
Given these Gundam-inspired origins, initially Kai had normal legs, with boots and all. However, Dominic then spun up the idea to make Kai more ninja-like, by giving him more pointy legs. This idea stuck, and became a common theme throughout the game for the robots... Even if only to make their in-game sprites easier to draw and animate!
Ray: Inspirations included a bit of Magma Man from MM9, while shoulder cannon beams were inspired by series like Tekkaman Blade. His design at first did not have him wear any shades, but the portrait artist interpreted his eyes as such. We liked it, and it stuck. It just made sense for his theming, given how he shoots dangerous lasers!
Trace: Typical doctor attire inspired her design, just with the added twist of her being a roboticist necromancer, rather than a traditional healer. This then naturally led to her raising and controlling various zombies, albeit robotic ones!
Blade: The idea from the start was to combine wind and ice elements into one boss. This stemmed from the fact that the early drafts for the game made the story take place entirely inside a computer or cyberspace, and Blade was supposed to represent the cooling system of said computer or system. His Circuit is shaped almost like an ice crown which ended up looking similar to Gemini Man's helmet, while his propeller was inspired by the likes of Gyro Man. One of the first sketches had Blade wearing a fur-coat, but in his final design it was scrapped because it was hard to translate such a detail into the in-game sprite.
Cable: His in-game sprite came first, with no solid plan for his design. Basically the process was: make him green to contrast with Kai's red, give him a stun baton arm as a distinguishing feature (where the stun baton idea came from, we don't know), and make his Circuit look like a mirrored pair of lightning bolts. Finer details of his design were then extrapolated from that in-game sprite by the game's portrait artist and so on.
Bit: Obvious parallels can be drawn with Turbo Man from Mega Man 7, when you consider the visor, helmet, the theming etc. Another big inspiration was Captain Falcon from F-Zero, with a little bit of Sonic the Hedgehog’s attitude to top it off.
Medley: Originally she was supposed to be a DJ, but she ended up being more of a pop idol, since this allowed her boss room to take the appearance of a concert stage. Her shades were partly inspired by Kamina’s shades from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. People say that she looks a little bit like Elec Man too, which I can totally see, but it wasn’t intentional. Maybe it was a subconscious design choice?
Crash: A big guy that looks mean but still kind somehow. Originally he had an (American) football helmet/mask, but that was hard to translate to a sprite, so his helmet took on more of a samurai motif. The overall first draft he was supposed to be more of a brawler type robot, throwing big rocks and smashing through walls with his hands. Not sure when the drill was added, but it did add more a more distinct look to his design, so it was a good decision.
Hash: He ended up with four arms, a scope visor and a microphone, because Dominic wanted him to look like he could easily process tons of data and work multiple computers at the same time. He was given a faceplate that made him look like he was grinning, reflecting his scheming, devilish prankster-like personality better.
Question #32: Are there any secret easter egg rooms in the game (akin to, say, the HAL rooms in Kirby games)?Antti: As much as I'd like to say "yes", the answer is a more simple "no".
Question #33: How do I access the dating sim minigame?Antti: If you find out how, tell us!
Question #34: Have you thought about the possibility of selling merchandise for Gravity Circuit? (ex: Plushies, posters, mugs, Kai's shoes but as slippers, etc.)Antti: Merchandise would be cool, but I believe any merch deals would also need to get our publisher involved.
Question #35: Will gravity circuit ever receive any updates adding new gamemodes/extras? Not DLC necessarily just like bonus stuff.Antti: At the very least, a Speedrun mode that disables cutscenes and dialogue, so to make replaying the game nicer.
Question #35: Considering that burst techniques were influenced in part by fighting games, was it ever considered during development to implement motion inputs in order to perform some of them (in a way reminiscent of hadouken in Mega Man X for example)?Antti: In some of the earliest drafts for ideas, yes. In fact, before the current system (inspired by the "Tales of" series) was put in place, specific burst techniques were assigned to holding down an attack button, and releasing the button after you were "charged up", with directions influencing the outcome. However, this was rather convoluted, so the directional input + separate button were implemented instead.
Question #36: Ironically, which one of the circuits would be the worst with computers? (like doesn't know how to send an email or even turn the pc on)Antti: Blade would just tell someone else to do any data entry required from him, because he's forgotten how to do it.
Question #37: Will some of the bosses be playable like in Mega Man Powered Up?Antti: We have heard fair plenty requests for additional playable characters, but at this time, we haven't decided anything yet.
[h2]Stay tuned for more of these super cool and interesting updates (we think?) and follow us on our official
Steam page,
Twitter (@GravityCircuit), and join our vibrant
Discord community as we all celebrate Gravity Circuit![/h2]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/858710/Gravity_Circuit/
