Pogo Rocket 1.3.0b Update Progress

It's been a couple of months since we've last updated Pogo Rocket. We want to let you all know that we're slowly making progress and are here to share some of what we have been working on:

Multiplayer

Multiplayer was originally something we really wanted to add to Pogo Rocket since we felt like it would be a good addition. We had planned on adding online multiplayer, however, it proved to be extremely challenging with GameMaker and would have warranted an entire rework of the game, so we decided against it.

What we have done instead is implemented local multiplayer. The reason for this is that it's much easier for us to get this working with Pogo Rocket and with Steam Remote Play becoming a more viable option, we figured this would work best.

Adding local multiplayer was much easier than online multiplayer, however it still came with some difficulties.

One major issue is that Pogo Rocket has directional sound. Many game engines only permit the use of one audio listener (including GameMaker), which is essentially a point in space where the game listens for these directional sounds. This is completely fine when there's only one player, but when there are multiple players on the same screen, this presents an issue.

In order to combat this, we implemented a system where the audio listener will move between each player depending on what sound is currently being played.

We assigned a priority value to each sound, with higher values being more important. If a sound with a higher value than another sound plays, the audio listener moves to that sound regardless of whether or not the other sound is playing. This worked quite well, however another minor issue presented itself.

Since the same sound can play at the same time, we needed a way to choose which one would be more important. We decided to also implement a distance value, so that when two same sounds are playing at the same time, the one which is closest to a player takes priority.

This system seems to work relatively well, with the only downside being that sometimes ambient sounds are cut out, however, this is a minor downside that would not be comparable to the lack of directional sounds all together.

New Zone

Another thing we have been working on is adding a new zone to Pogo Rocket.

This new zone will be themed around the aliens and their crystal-like designs. It will include new themed enemies, obstacles, and more.

On the surface, it seems like a simple thing to start working on, however designing sprites and choosing the overall art style we'd like to go forth with is deceivingly complicated. The main issue that presents itself is designing the environment.

Pogo Rocket, being a platformer, is designed around a tile set of blocks. These blocks are often grouped up and tiled hundreds of times, so they need to be able to look interesting while also being tiled. This can become quite difficult to do especially when there are so many different variants to take into account. This is the biggest reason why there's been no update for a few months now.

We have been working on coming up with a design for this tileset, however it has proved to be challenging, so we will continue to work on it until it's in a state were happy with.

Anyways, we hope you all enjoyed that run through of what we've been working on and hopefully newfound insight into the complexities of game design. We are hoping to release 1.3.0b within the next month, but we are of the mindset that we would rather spend the time to make an update exactly what we want rather than rushing things.

Thanks for reading!