Tough Bippy : Progress & Patron Test Build Plans (Patreon)

Welcome to another WAN WAN GAMES update over here on Patreon! We're heading into the end of September and have been extremely busy finishing up as much as we can with Tough Bippy! Julian has been working extra hard with Sneep on art for the game with Bippy himself now having over 300+ frames of animation!

Below are samples of some movement animations - check it out!

We'll be showcasing more and more finished sprites in future posts so stay tuned for those! 

Let's talk gameplay! In terms of where Tough Bippy stands - focus has been going towards finishing up movement and combat basics. The build we're currently working on was started this year and was based off work done with a previous prototype build made a little over a year ago. 

Within the time spent this year we were able to get Tough Bippy far more functional than the original prototype build we had made! Walking, jumping, dashing, air dashing, wall kicking, ladders, almost all movement for Bippy has been implemented into the game.

The combat system is what is greatly being prioritized at the moment, various attacks currently being added to Bippy's move list to allow for auto-combos alongside helpful attacks such as launchers. 

Julian has been working on finishing attack animations the past few weeks with about 50% of Bippy's moves currently finished. You can watch Julian's streams over on Twitch by clicking here! He streams every Tuesday and Thursday night so be sure to tune in if you're curious about the animation process or to see what he's currently working on!

Once we finish the implementation of Bippy's default attacks we will be focusing attention towards packaging everything together and preparing a demo for patrons. This demo will feature a basic debug room with some test enemies inside to fight, the hope being that we can receive feedback from patrons on what needs improvement. The hope is that before the end of autumn we can get this Tough Bippy test build ready but we'll see if we need a bit of flexibility or not. We're at least on a good pace at the moment and trying to keep it up!

Before getting back to work on the combat mechanics I've been in the process of redoing how background collisions are handled, as now a tile system has been implemented which will also allow for managing/creating levels to be significantly easier. The math for slopes needs to be rewritten but that will hopefully be done within the next week or so. The performance of the game has also sharply increased thanks to changing to tiles so that opens the door for more possibilities!

Programming streams will also be making a comeback in the next month or so over on Twitch. I'll be making posts on Twitter whenever I'll be hosting one so just keep your eyes peeled for any announcements. You can visit my Twitch by clicking here! 

With how busy we've been trying to get a Tough Bippy test build ready it meant putting a lot on the back-burner, Wan! Wan! TV sitting off to the side while we focused on what mattered most. With that demo date rolling in closer and closer and things loosening up, work has started back up on WWTV and will hopefully get a chance to launch alongside the return of programming streams! The software has been rewritten from the ground up, only needing a bit more of additional work to finalize schedule screens. Tough Bippy is still top priority at the moment but any free-time available will be going towards finalizing Wan! Wan! TV!

Thanks for continuing to support all the work we've been doing on Tough Bippy! We are excited to eventually let you guys give it a shot! Be sure to follow our streams if you want to catch any live work on the game when it happens! We'll be hitting you guys with more details on the test build as they come so as always - stay tuned! 

~DD