Problems and Progress (Patreon)

Veins here.

Apologies for the  lack of posts the past few months. Me and Titan had it hard for several  reasons... Covid-19 struck a bit too close to home and the lockdown  damaged us mentally. There were other problems like over 200 wasps  occupying my room, back problems, hard drive failures and even bridge  shuttering floods and ear problems (during the making of sound effects  of all times) to name a few. So we weren't in the best frame of mind to  focus on the game as much as we wanted.

Problems  aside, we managed to pull ourselves together and do a lot of progress.  All the normal MoGi are pretty much finished. Sometimes however, if you  try to fix something, something else breaks, so we had many unexpected  glitches:

SlimeGirl Blue: her projectile reverses trajectory when we press pause.
https://youtu.be/8b3-ZS1v_XI

SlimeGirl Black: she vanishes with Voms during her grab.
https://youtu.be/5gT9lWOLxUo

We  try to finalize everything we can and release a new demo with two Extra  Modes, as originally promised. These Modes (Time Attack and Survival)  are almost completed, as you can briefly see in the video above. They  need a little more work before we are satisfied regarding the mechanics  and pace. Both modes will include new MoGi to fight against.

These  new MoGi would be Troll and Vampire. Working on them, gave us the  opportunity to go back and improve many other enemies, regarding their  behavior and sounds effects. A lot of the MoGi have updated audio and  they sound a lot  more unique and memorable. The image below shows some of the things that  had to be improved.

^various corrections

There  was a lot back and forth to make all this happen and we had to test  each change several times over and reevaluate every decision we make.  What works, what doesn't, what we can keep working on or discard. Many  "luxuries" were left out so that we can focus on what is most important.  For example, I wanted the NPC Soldiers to be able to kill MoGi but that  would be a week of programing work, and although it would make the game  more realistic, it's not really that important and it only may have  been used on a couple of screens max.

That said, we tried  to add details whenever possible. Most MoGi have a little tell before  they attack. Naiad and Turquoise hold their projectiles a bit longer and  Squirrel looks back if she is about to turn without finding a wall :)

An  important thing we added, is Voms' kicking and grabbing in the same  jump. Up to now, he couldn't grab on a ledge if he had kicked on the  air. Titan had to play around with the core mechanics, which is always  dangerous. This small addition however, improves the gameplay and it can  create a few satisfying combos. The following images also show some  decisions we had to make.

^This is a problem that occurs in many 2D platform games
and we couldn't work a way around it because it would cause conflicts
with the other mechanics of the game.

^Trying to make Vampire's jumping attack animation feel good, visually.

Having  an enemy that jumps was a huge challenge to program, because the base  of the platforming engine still used some of GM's built in physics  systems which are a complete black box.

We  hope we can release a satisfying new demo soon, as we feel we are  getting closer to finishing the game with each new installment.  Releasing the Extra Modes is our way of saying that progress is made and  that the game looks and feels good. We don't want to spoil the actual  game as it's really close to finish, so the Extra Modes were the best  next thing we could prepare for release at this point.