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Devlog - 11/18/2024 - Bats, Charms, Migrations and Even More Jam!
🕑 Added 2024-11-20 16:33:19 +0000 UTCArt Packs
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Hi everyone!
This post was supposed to go out on the 18th, but some RL things came up and I didn't get around to putting the finishing touches on it like turning the video clips into GIFs etc. Sorry for the delay! ^w^
Bat Progress
In between smaller art tasks, my main project is the long, tedious process of rendering the frames for the bat lewd!
Buuut once that animation is a wrap, the build will be pretty much complete! ^w^
Improving Save System Robustness
Last week bunny did some work on our save system.
As the game grows and changes there are always going to be some tweaks to the file format.
To help with that, we refactored the load/save system to include backup management and version migration.
That means if you take a break from Kincaid and return a couple of versions later, we should have a system in place that migrates your old saves to the most recent version.
The game also now creates backups of your saves. If the migration fails your old data is safe and can be restored.
The same is true for making progress and saving within the game! If we mess up and create a soft or hardlock, there should be a backlog of previous save files that can be restored.
The game keeps track of the backups created and cleans up old ones automatically, so your hard drive won't get cluttered with tons of backup files.
The next step is going to be asynchronous loading and saving. Instead of the small stutter you might experience now, the game is just going to show a little spinning icon or something in the corner while a save process is running.
Someone Jammed Your Radar!
Lately, in some areas the map doesn't seem to be working! What the hell!?
Could it be all that jam that's sloshing around and falling from the ceiling has jammed your radar? Or is it something else?
Of course... ! I should have known! -_-~*
Renee hasn't even fully joined the cast yet and she is already causing trouble for us!
It appears that Renee has hidden annoying jamming devices all over the place, hoping that Kincaid's gonna get lost and fall behind in the treasure hunt!
You know what you have to do! Hint:
Super Charming Upgrade System
A platformer without equippable upgrades would feel kinda hollow amirite?
(To be nitpicky, Hollow Knight didn’t invent the idea, even though it often gets credited for it. Games like Paper Mario’s Badge system or Castlevania’s Relics and Glyphs were already paving the way for modular upgrades before Hollow Knight made it cool - dark souls rolls out of the room).
If you've played any of the recent search-action platformers, you'll feel right at home! There aren't going to be any huge surprises here - just some f un upgrades that let you tailor your playstyle!
Debug view - We used that to test the underpinning system first and then layered the UI on top, once it was working as intended:
The next build is going to ship with just one, and you'll have it from the start: An "Easy Mode" Upgrade!
We've been getting more complaints about the game's difficulty. So want to give players an equip that makes some parts of the game a little bit easier.
What it does specifically will change later on. For now it will just give you more HP, more oxygen and an extra dodge roll, or something along these lines!
The UI for the Status Screen is going to be super rough initially! We just don't have the time to make something pretty without delaying the build further. We'd rather wrap this one up and polish it during the next devcycles.
Plumbers Don't Wear Gloves
And finally, a fun little mechanic bunny threw together in an afternoon, as a creative break after finishing the save system stuff, and before jumping into more data and UI related tasks (both of which he really doesn't like xD).
Bunny: I loved these suction pipe levels in a game I played as a kid and wanted to do a mechanic like it for a while now. Since they're one-way trips without a guaranteed way to return, they can be very exciting!
It also happened to fit perfectly with the theme of the levels I'm currently designing!
Follow us on Bluesky!
If you're also not a fan of musky social media sites, you can now follow us on Bluesky as well: https://bsky.app/profile/cookiedraggy.bsky.social
Until next time!
Cookie & Bunny
Overall Status Report
Upcoming Build Tasks
Kobold City Cisterns Work-in-Progress
New small lewd animation DONE
New CG scene DONE
Long-term Projects
Soundtrack: New Soundtrack Additions
Haven: Working on backgrounds and props Work-in-Progress
Bat: A new major enemy Work-in-Progress
