Mind Over Magnet Devlog - February 27 (Patreon)

Hey Patrons!

I’m sorry about the radio silence as of late. I am deep, deep, deep within game dev and am really committed to getting this game finished. So everything else is getting sidelined! But I thought it would be a good time to check in and talk about what I’ve been working on since we last spoke.

The big vector overhaul

Okay. So in the previous devlog, I talked about how I took the UI - which was all drawn in pixel art - and remade it as vector art. Well in January… I did the same thing for the rest of the game.

Yep, that’s right. The character, the magnets, all of the mechanics, the floor tiles… I remade them all. No more pixels - they’re now slick 4K-ready assets.

Why? Well, it comes down to an annoying problem with pixel art and screen resolutions.

Basically: my sprites are quite big. So a room in Mind Over Magnet might require 1280x720 pixels to draw. That looks perfect on a 720p monitor. And if you play the game on a 1440p monitor or a 4K TV, you can just double or triple every pixel and it will look perfect.

But for 1080p (the most popular resolution according to Steam)… that means making every pixel 1.5 times bigger. And there’s no such thing as half a pixel! Unity will just have to make it up - putting an extra pixel here, removing a pixel there. The whole thing looks squiffy and gross.

What’s the solution? Well you either live with the squiffy pixels. Use anti-aliasing. Or put a border around the game. They’re all compromises.

Things got worse when I realise that a 720p room is still quite small, and wouldn’t fit all my puzzles. So some larger puzzles are made to fit a 1920x1080 (1080p) screen… and now the game doesn’t look good on Steam Deck (1280x800 native resolution), and those rooms look squiffy in 1440p (which is 1.33x bigger - you definitely can’t have a third of a pixel!!).

Argh! This is a headache that’s been haunting me for months. So I decided to finally bite the bullet and just get rid of the pixel art entirely. If the art isn’t dependent on a super specific pixel grid… I can do anything. Zoom the camera in and out to any size. Put it on a Steam Deck or a 4K TV without issue. Add more detail and character to the magnets.

So that’s what I did. I put every sprite into Photoshop, tripled its size, and then remade it using vector tools (like shapes and the pen tool).

In the end it didn’t take as long as I expected. Most of my pixel art is quite simple and boxy anyway, so it was easy to make as vector. And I didn’t remake the background assets - I just kept them as pixel art and threw on a depth of field effect to blur them out. Don’t tell anyone!

Overall, I’m really happy with this change. I think the game looks better than ever and now the game is without compromises. The game just looks good, no matter your resolution! Hooray!

A trailer

Back in January, I saw an interesting button in my Steam dashboard - an opportunity to submit Mind Over Magnet to the next Steam next fest, which is happening in June. I just need a trailer. So I decided to take a day off dev to make one.

Unfortunately, right now the game only consists of a single world - the sewers. And so that would make for a very boring trailer! But I was able to chuck together some assets, half-finished levels, and incomplete backgrounds to make some fake(ish) levels from later in the game.

I recorded myself playing these levels with no music - just sound effects. I put the recording into Premiere and then clipped all the most interesting bits. Stuff that shows different mechanics, story beats, and exciting moments.

I then downloaded a piece of music from Epidemic Sound. I actually do have a composer now - but they’re not available to work on the game yet, so I had to stick with stock music.

I then placed the clips to the drum beat. And tried to build a bit of a narrative with the clips - showing you exploring the sewer, finding Magnus, and then solving different puzzle types. Plus, a tease to future magnet types.

Ultimately, it’s not the best trailer ever made. But it does the job, and allowed me to submit the game to Next Fest. So you’ll see the game on the Steam store this summer!

A production pipeline

So, the game is now in full production swing. I know what the game is. I know what happens in the story. I know what mechanics are used and when they are introduced. And I have a rough draft of the entire game.

Now it’s just a case of going through the game, world by world, and making it.

This has meant finding an effective production pipeline that will get the game made. And it basically works like this:

On Tuesday through Friday, I work on new content for the game. So, last week, that meant making the first seven rooms in world two. Then on Friday evening I create a build and send it out to 2-4 playtesters over on Twitter.

(As a Patron, you can always find the latest build on Itch.io)

Then I can rest over the weekend. Come Monday, I check my DMs to find playthrough videos from these playtesters. I watch the whole thing, taking notes of anything that comes up - bugs, level skips, puzzles that are too easy or too hard, things that are confusing, and so on.

I'm looking for stuff in the whole game - not just the new content I've made, but all the previous levels too. You never know when someone will come across a rare bug or something. Then I spend the rest of the day changing the game to fit this feedback.

I then work on new content from Tuesday onwards, and give it to fresh playtesters on Friday. Come Monday I'll see if my changes were suitable, and get feedback on the new content.

So I’m always making new stuff, and always checking the entire game with a handful of testers. Slowly, but surely, the game gets built and it gets better. And so I’m just going to repeat this process until… it’s done!

Other stuff

Thanks to my contacts at Unity, I can finally turn off the "Made with Unity" splash screen. Although now the game almost loads too quick - perhaps I should add a GMTK studio logo.

I've started working on getting the game to run perfectly on Steam Deck. I've added some code to make the game change to 16:10 if it detects the Deck (so, unlike the photo above, it won't have black borders). And making sure the controller icons match the console.

Speak soon!

Mark