Cosmo's Weekly Update #26

We got a long one today! Read on as the team reminisce on some of their favorite parts of working on the game. And don't forgot COSMO'S QUICKSTOP OUT AUGUST 18th!!!!

Bryan - Making all of the game’s art has been a challenging experience, but I learned so much more than I have in all my years as a hobbyist and a student. Developing Cosmo’s has somehow felt like both the fastest and the longest 5 years of my life. It seems like just yesterday we were prototyping our first demo, but thinking about all the long hours we worked to achieve this, it has certainly been a long time.

One of my favorite things about working with this team is the freedom I’ve had to go wild with whatever silly ideas I come up with. Stuff like the fish tank in Morvin’s room or the credits at the end of the game were so fun to work on because I could explore whatever ideas I wanted without worrying about the rules of the game world. If I wanted to put a tiny astronaut in the fish tank or have a cat floating around in outer space, I could do that.

I also really enjoyed seeing people play the game at conventions. After working a long time on something like this, it’s so satisfying to see other people playing it and having fun. While conventions are super exhausting, the energy at events like these is also invigorating. Plus talking and laughing with fans and other devs is the best!

Lauren - Wow, what an incredible alien whirlwind journey the past two years have been! I got the opportunity to be part of a fantastic team of creative devs, join the development meetings, social network at one of London's biggest conventions, and take a little Cosmo on a road trip to the human world of Buckingham Palace.

It's been a phenomenal experience seeing how much love and heart the team has put into Cosmo's week after week, and a little place in my heart has grown very fond of a little alien with a red jumpsuit named Morvin. I'm so happy that I could grow and build the community around the world of Cosmo's Quickstop! Thank you for being on this trip to outer space with us, and we will see you at a familiar gas station next week.

Erin - Holy moly! Can’t believe the game’s finally coming out next week! I think part of what took this game a long time to come out is that we all kept having good ideas on how to make the world better, bigger, and funnier. The fact that it’s set in space, in a wacky environment really let us play with what could be possible in a place like this. This made animating a lot of fun, especially compared to working in mocap!

I have a few favorite animations I did for Cosmo’s. First, Morv-0’s entrance to the station every day. So many people commented that it felt so smoooooth. Some animations come easily, and some need a lot of elbow grease, but I remember this one coming together unnaturally quickly (which, of course, makes me like it more!).

I also loved how the animation of Morvin petting the cat turned out. The inspiration, of course, was our own cats! They always know when they’re about to get pets with little finger wiggles like Morvin does in this gif.

I also have to give an honorable mention to Puppet Cosmo, who we really should have used more in marketing, but that’s OK. I made him myself in September 2019. You can see more of how I made him here: https://imgur.com/gallery/NrSxBuH. Behind the scenes, he’s been a guest star at a few holidays, parties, and late night dance sessions.

Ian - I honestly still can’t believe we are launching NEXT WEEK! It has been a very long journey to get to this point for everyone involved. I still remember playing our very first build, made October 6th 2016. It was rough around the edges, the minigames were a lot more obtuse, and the art was basically non-existent. But when you could get through all of its ugliness you could have a lot of fun playing it, which is truly what captured our hearts. Playing the game now fills my heart with joy and pride, especially since the core of original fun is still there. It just happens to now be surrounded by amazing art, good game design, and systems that guide the player through all that can be experienced.

I don’t have a ton to showcase visually because these days I’m a programmer not an artist, so I figured I would show off my two favorite bugs from the game.

Here is one I title Soul Leaving Body. This bug came around from how we handle aliens getting electro shocked in game. We flash on and off a “skeleton” version of them to play up the classic cartoony shock gag. In this instance, the animation was not set up correctly and translated up on every repeat, creating this delightful bug.

This one I title Jurassic Quickstop. To me, these little weird bug folks look like little dinosaurs wandering around the quickstop. All I can think about is “Dun-na-na na na” (insert bad theme song singing). This bug came from having the wrong export ratio on the Shoobies walk cycles. You can see them pop into their correct size when they are not walking and then back to dinosaur mode when they start again.

And that is that! This is the last update before the game comes out, which is a crazy thing to say. Please send all your good luck our way so we can have the best launch possible. We are so excited to share our game with the world!