Repeated intro
Hello again everyone! Looks like it's been a long time since the last devlog. (again). Sorry about that! It's for a good reason though actually, as like I mentioned on Twitter and Bluesky, I'm now at a point in development where the majority of the workload is with animations, music, and other non-coding related tasks. This is because the game's new framework for the stages is pretty much complete! The tradeoff though, is that less coding for me to do also means less for me to write about in these devlogs. Talking about animation and music is a bit more difficult, especially since I can't show you most of it yet. All things considered though, rest assured that I am indeed still putting my all into working on the game. I'm lucky enough to be in a position that allows me to work on this game full-time. Nearly every single day, I spend most of my time working on it and making progress, even if you can't always see it!
What changed
0 fixes3 additions0 changes0 removals
addedHello again everyone! Looks like it's been a long time since the last devlog. (again). Sorry about that! It's for a good reason though actually, as like I mentioned on Twitter and Bluesky, I'm now at a point in development where the majority of the workload is with animations, music, and other non-coding related tasks. This is because the game's new framework for the stages is pretty much complete! The tradeoff though, is that less coding for me to do also means less for me to write about in these devlogs. Talking about animation and music is a bit more difficult, especially since I can't show you most of it yet. All things considered though, rest assured that I am indeed still putting my all into working on the game. I'm lucky enough to be in a position that allows me to work on this game full-time. Nearly every single day, I spend most of my time working on it and making progress, even if you can't always see it!
addedThis boss won't introduce any new special note mechanics, but instead will utilize all of the new mechanics introduced in the Act 2's other songs. I felt like this pattern would be perfect from a game design standpoint, as the player gets to conclude each Act using everything they've learned from said Act's rival battles. I wasn't entirely safe from coding anything new here though, as I just made it so that the beat dots/stars on the UI will rearrange their order to line up with the placement of the first note on each respective line. This way, lines that begin on a backbeat or middle beat will be properly reflected visually instead of just always starting from the first beat of the measure. (In case you didn't know: The 4 stars represent the 4 main beats in each measure! Gameplay wise, these don't function any different from middle beats, they just help you visualize the BPM)
addedAs you can see, I've also tweaked the UI a bit again. Most notably, the Fidelity meter and Score counter have both been moved to the bottom and given new looks. I was having issues with the previous placement of the Fidelity bar, as I needed a good and clear way way to visually represent when the player is close to ascending into Lucid. As I experimented I concluded it was just far too cramped up there for me to do much of anything. So, I just moved it to the bottom. (Along with the score counter too to keep things balanced) People who are familiar with what the dog was doing may be more accustomed to this layout.
Scratchin' Melodii changes
addedHello again everyone! Looks like it's been a long time since the last devlog. (again). Sorry about that! It's for a good reason though actually, as like I mentioned on Twitter and Bluesky, I'm now at a point in development where the majority of the workload is with animations, music, and other non-coding related tasks. This is because the game's new framework for the stages is pretty much complete! The tradeoff though, is that less coding for me to do also means less for me to write about in these devlogs. Talking about animation and music is a bit more difficult, especially since I can't show you most of it yet. All things considered though, rest assured that I am indeed still putting my all into working on the game. I'm lucky enough to be in a position that allows me to work on this game full-time. Nearly every single day, I spend most of my time working on it and making progress, even if you can't always see it!
addedThis boss won't introduce any new special note mechanics, but instead will utilize all of the new mechanics introduced in the Act 2's other songs. I felt like this pattern would be perfect from a game design standpoint, as the player gets to conclude each Act using everything they've learned from said Act's rival battles. I wasn't entirely safe from coding anything new here though, as I just made it so that the beat dots/stars on the UI will rearrange their order to line up with the placement of the first note on each respective line. This way, lines that begin on a backbeat or middle beat will be properly reflected visually instead of just always starting from the first beat of the measure. (In case you didn't know: The 4 stars represent the 4 main beats in each measure! Gameplay wise, these don't function any different from middle beats, they just help you visualize the BPM)
addedAs you can see, I've also tweaked the UI a bit again. Most notably, the Fidelity meter and Score counter have both been moved to the bottom and given new looks. I was having issues with the previous placement of the Fidelity bar, as I needed a good and clear way way to visually represent when the player is close to ascending into Lucid. As I experimented I concluded it was just far too cramped up there for me to do much of anything. So, I just moved it to the bottom. (Along with the score counter too to keep things balanced) People who are familiar with what the dog was doing may be more accustomed to this layout.
Well, let's get started then. Firstly, I'm pleased to tell you that last week I finished all of the 2D animation for the Act 2 boss! Since then, I've just been making the necessary 3D models for it and implementing everything into the actual game. It's going incredibly smooth so far, which means all that coding I did to make the process smoother was a success. I'll have to give myself a promotion 👆🏽🎖‼
This boss won't introduce any new special note mechanics, but instead will utilize all of the new mechanics introduced in the Act 2's other songs. I felt like this pattern would be perfect from a game design standpoint, as the player gets to conclude each Act using everything they've learned from said Act's rival battles. I wasn't entirely safe from coding anything new here though, as I just made it so that the beat dots/stars on the UI will rearrange their order to line up with the placement of the first note on each respective line. This way, lines that begin on a backbeat or middle beat will be properly reflected visually instead of just always starting from the first beat of the measure. (In case you didn't know: The 4 stars represent the 4 main beats in each measure! Gameplay wise, these don't function any different from middle beats, they just help you visualize the BPM)
As you can see, I've also tweaked the UI a bit again. Most notably, the Fidelity meter and Score counter have both been moved to the bottom and given new looks. I was having issues with the previous placement of the Fidelity bar, as I needed a good and clear way way to visually represent when the player is close to ascending into Lucid. As I experimented I concluded it was just far too cramped up there for me to do much of anything. So, I just moved it to the bottom. (Along with the score counter too to keep things balanced) People who are familiar with what the dog was doing may be more accustomed to this layout.
I think that wraps it up for what I can say about progress at the moment, so to make up for the likely slower rollout of devlogs for a while, I decided to answer a few more questions I've seen on social media. (I'll be kinda paraphrasing them, but hopefully my answers suffice!)
Q: "Would it be a good idea to hire more people in your team to help with the development of the game? Even if you
