Weekly Update! 9-4-2021 (Ledge vaulting, Slam attack) (Patreon)

Hey everybody! It finally happened this week. I was able to wake up in the morning feeling ready to go, make my way down to my desk, and actually successfully work for the first time in months! As you can probably tell, I'm feeling pretty pumped. I wanted to give myself some time to adjust to the medication, so I didn't work for the first half of the week; it was on Thursday that it happened, and so far, every day since then I've also been able to work. I think I might have pushed myself a bit too far yesterday, I was pretty tired by the end of my workday and I felt like I was going to delay the weekly update to Sunday since I wasn't feeling up to recording footage at the time - but when I woke up today I felt much better, so here we are! I'm going to try and limit how much time I spend working for a while, so I don't push myself too far and end up going backwards, but it really does feel incredible to be creative again.

With that, I don't have too much else to talk about on the personal side this week, so let's get to the update!

First off, the video up above. How often has it happened while you're playing Crisis Point that you try to jump up to a ledge, but just barely don't make it, so you have to wait for Alicia to fall down far enough for you to ledge grab, then you can finally jump up? Well, it happened to me one too many times for my taste, so we're fixing it!

Once Alicia gets the Kilogrip upgrade, in addition to being able to normally ledge grab, she'll also get the ability to quickly parkour-vault up onto ledges she just barely didn't make it to. Since you need the Kilogrip first, you won't be able to do this right out of the gate - and it doesn't enable you to reach any ledges you couldn't already reach by ledge grabbing - but it improves the flow of platforming considerably! The animation doesn't lock you into it either; there's a short period at the start where you can't shoot, but that's the only restriction. You can cancel out of the animation at any time by pushing away from the ledge, and once you're up on the ledge you can start shooting again. There's still some work to do on the ability - as you can see the art isn't complete, for one, and there's also quite a number of bugs still - but the main functionality is done, and the issues will get ironed out before long.

The other thing I worked on this week is another ability I've been considering for the Iron Boots. Previously, the Iron Boots only let you sink in water and that was it - now, they have a second ability: an air slam attack!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ioFGYg0frY

(I don't think Patreon lets you embed multiple videos in one post, so if this link doesn't embed, you'll have to click on it to watch - sorry!)

This one is still VERY WIP right now, there will be special effects and whatnot. Functionally, the air slam serves as a way to descend quickly (which also helps you control your movement underwater better), and it also allows you to bounce off enemies while dealing melee damage if you slam into them! The latter functionality hasn't been implemented yet, which is why it doesn't show up in the video. I'm hoping to use this to make early underwater exploration more enjoyable, as well as implement some fun enemy-based platforming challenges.

And that's all for this week! It feels almost strange to be able to write a normal weekly update for once, but strange in a good way. Feels like things are finally getting somewhat back to normal. I still have a long way to go to be "healthy" - I don't think I've been mentally or physically healthy since well before starting Crisis Point, honestly - but this is a really big step forward, and I owe it all to you guys. Combining my already-bad mental health with the stress and burnout of working on the same project for such a long time brought me to a really bad place, and the only reason I'm here now, able to start recovering and trying to reach a happier place in life, is entirely because of you all. Thank you guys so, so much. I owe you more than I'll ever be able to repay, but I'll do my best to repay it by making Crisis Point the best game it can be! We'll see you next week with another update!