Monthly Archives: March 2017

Jetboard Joust Devlog #59 – Alpha Launch!

March 27, 2017 – 5:25 pm
Woohoo – major milestone alert!!

I’ve finally got things to the state where I feel like I can release a playable alpha. Yes, there are still a few bugs and things I need to refine in the game design but I think we’re pretty much there. What’s also great is, thanks to the great flexibility of MonoGame, I can also release a MacOS version. The MacOS port only took me just over a day and I may detail that in another post.

For those of you who just want to cut to the chase and download the thing click here!

And for those of you who are actually interested in the devlog here’s a list of the significant additions in this final round of tweaks, many thanks to the folks who gave me feedback at the pre-alpha stage…

Pistol Range
It became obvious from user feedback that the range on the pistol (the default weapon) simply wasn’t enough. Players found they had to get unnaturally close to enemies to kill them which often meant they crashed into them by accident. Consequently I have increased the initial range of the pistol by about 75%, though to compensate I have made the damage done tail off as the bullet reaches the end of its range.

Its better than it was but I’m not convinced I’ve yet solved this issue. It’s a bit of a delicate balancing act as I want the weapon to be meaningfully upgradeable, yet also powerful enough to start with and not overpowered later on. Also, because the enemies use identical weapons to the player increasing a weapon’s range/damage also increases the difficulty of those enemies that use it!

Another more radical solution I’m considering is to significantly increase the pistol’s range yet further (and maybe give it unlimited ammo) yet not allow it to be upgraded. This would make the start of the game considerably more approachable for new players and increase its difficulty later on as players wouldn’t have a strong default weapon to fall back on. It would also put more emphasis on managing ammo levels later in the game which could be a good thing.

Playing Catch
It has always been a feature of the game that catching an enemy’s jetboard before it hits the ground give both an ammo and a shield boost and is therefore preferable to waiting until it hits the ground (generating only one type of pickup). I didn’t feel this was very clear though so I have added mini shield/ammo icons to the enemy jetboards as they fall which will hopefully communicate that there’s goodies on board and these things are worth collecting. The player also gets a ‘nice catch’ message if they do this indicating that it’s a good thing to do (catching jetboards is also the way to unlock new weapons)!

Extra Life / Jetsuit Indicators
Picking up your abandoned jetsuit after you lose a life is a central game mechanic as it’s the way to recover lost cash and not lose out on valuable upgrades. Similarly extra lives in the game are pretty rare so when they do appear the player isn’t going to want to miss out on them. I talked about adding pickup indicators and detectors for other bonus items here and decided I had to do the same for jetsuits and extra lives as they are arguably the most valuable pickups in the game!

Microsite
Yeah, not really part of the game dev but I thought I’d include it anyway. I needed a microsite or landing page to distribute the alpha so went ahead and built one. I’ve included a simple signup for for a mailchimp list. Goodness knows whether anyone will use it but hopefully it’ll server some purpose.

Update Tracking
I’ve added a very simple way for the game to poll the web server, check whether an optional or mandatory update is available and notify the player appropriately. The alpha build will also expire after a set date (currently the end of June so plenty of time to play).

I may now take a break from gamedev for a bit as I have had to take on some appdev contract work (fortunately a pretty nice project) to top up my dwindling coffers. I will have to try and get a youtube promo done over the next few weeks though, and hopefully get the word out about the alpha.

Thanks for watching and please stay tuned…

Dev Time: 4 days (inc microsite build)
Total Dev Time: approx 115.5 days

previous

mockup_3x
Making It More Obvious That There’s Booty On Falling Jetboards

mockup_3x
Pointing Out The Player’s Abandoned Jetsuit


You Don’t Want To Miss Out On An Extra Life Either!
By bitbull-uk | Posted in DevLogs, Game Design, Jetboard Joust, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Jetboard Joust Devlog #58 – Almost At Alpha!

March 7, 2017 – 5:25 pm

So for the last couple of days or so I’ve been doing an awful lot of playtesting and making what should be the final round of tweaks, improvements and bugfixes for the playable alpha. A large amount of this has been general tweaks to difficulty levels and the like which would be too numerous to list here but here’s a few specifics as to what’s been included…

Weapon Stashing
In order to prevent the player from overpowering one weapon and simply sticking with that I now switch to the default weapon on losing a life and completing a level. This isn’t such a big deal at the moment as there are only three weapons but there will be a lot more in the final game. In addition to this, weapons are no longer automatically reloaded when ‘swapped out’ meaning it’s possible to stash an empty weapon. As a consequence I’ve also made weapon crates display the amount of ammo in the included weapon. Stashed weapons retain their ammo between levels.

Controls
I’ve tweaked the controls a bit so that they are a bit less ‘binary’ and it’s easier for the player to make smaller movements. There’s a fine line here between being able to make subtle movements and being able to move quickly when necessary. I’ve moved to using lerp-based interpolation for the player’s vertical speed and also added the ability to ‘brake’ (cancel horizontal motion) by pulling directly down on the controller.

Camera
Slight improvements to make the camera track better when running away from enemies (ie not track as if you’re trying to attack an enemy that’s behind you). Again there’s a fine line here as sometimes you are ‘dogfighting’ with an enemy that’s behind you so what I do is make a decision based on how long the player has been moving in the same direction. Rapid changes of movement tend to mean dogfighting, continuous movement tends to mean running away!

Input And UI Labelling
I’ve checked all the dialog buttons in the game for keyboard and controller input and labelled them appropriately depending on the input method being used. If the game receives any controller input I presume the player is playing with a controller, otherwise I assume a keyboard is being used. I’ve also made dialog buttons and a few other UI elements respond to mouse input just for a ‘belt and braces’ approach. the game itself can’t be played with a mouse though.

Instructions
I’ve added some pretty minimal (but hopefully sufficient) instructions and a diagram of controls for both keyboard and controller input.

Enemy Randomizer
I’ve made yet more tweaks to the code that generates the levels so there’s a much better distribution of enemies. I’ve added a ‘Config’ class that contains all the definitions for enemy/weapon intro levels and difficulty settings in one place so it’s much easier to edit.

Baiters/Bastards
These are the enemies that appear when the player is taking too long to complete a level. Originally I had it so they didn’t need to be destroyed in order to complete a level (as in Defender) but I thought it was a bit weird getting the ‘all enemies destroyed’ message when there were enemies still present. Now the baiters have to be destroyed too but no additional baiters will appear once all other enemies have been defeated.

Bugfixes
Fixed a bunch, one of the most amusing ones was where an enemy’s jetboard would continue to fire after the enemy had been killed (if it was armed with an automatic weapon). This was funny but I couldn’t leave it in.

Now I have to decide whether I’m going to create a proper installer for the alpha (and build it if so) or just distribute a zip file – then you should be able to have a go!

Dev Time: 2.5 days
Total Dev Time: approx 111.5 days

previous|next

mockup_3x
Weapon Crates Now Display The Amount Of Ammo Inside

mockup_3x
Alpha Instructions
By bitbull-uk | Posted in DevLogs, Game Design, Jetboard Joust, Uncategorized | Comments (0)