New year, new game. Its 2019 and we are finally getting our shit back together! In recent weeks, our game has been reaching first playable status with the vast majority of mechanics in place, and first pass / early representation of game art and animations implemented into the engine. A lot will change as we show the game and play test, but we finally have something to show and gather feedback on…and your first opportunity to do just that is at Ohio University’s Business of Games Summit on February 22nd!! Get pumped, and get reading this fresh monthly recap.

Mechanics

It may not have been very noticeable in previous screenshots, but the laser sight used to aim did not previously wrap around the screen while aiming. This past month, we worked on fixing that in an attempt to move ever closer to getting a feel for how the game plays. While this seems like a minor addition, it has large gameplay implications since we are driving for gameplay that revolves around baiting your opponents into up close and personal combat. When seeing a laser pointed at your character, it is natural to avoid it because you are in immediate danger of being hit. This will drive where you move your character, and give players more of an opportunity to make plays around this mechanic.

During recent tests of mechanics, wall hanging has been turned off since it was triggering too often in its “first pass” state. This past month, we iterated on it again and it is now much closer to its final state of functionality meaning we can test it more rigorously and design more interesting movement around it. Vaulting off of a wall hang? Aiming and shooting while hanging? Jump kicking from a hanging position? The possibilities are endless!

Art

The platforms that you see in the above images, and in many of our other blog posts were supposed to be a first pass of the final platforms used across all levels and worlds. This was at a time when body switching was not initiated by players, but happened to everyone on a global timer. These platforms were meant to carry player colors through them to visually show which new character you would be controlling, but since this is no longer how switching works, we elected to create different platforms for each world. Below are examples of how the first world’s platforms may look:

Animation

Along with art and mechanics, we have been in iteration mode in the animation department as well! After implementing animations in engine, we noticed that certain animations like the recoil and damaged animations are not very noticeable when performing other actions. Because of this, we have been iterating on these to give them a bit more “oomf”. Keep your eyes out to see examples of these soon!

As the groundwork has now been laid, we are very excited to keep building on this game and get it to a state of releasing it to the world. The first step towards that goal is to gather as much feedback as possible. That being said, come see us at the Business of Games Summit (linked in the first paragraph) and play our VERY early version of the game! Games can’t be made without help, and we would love to hear what YOU have to say about the game. See you soon.

Bone out.

-Humongous Bone