It was a surprisingly hard month.
It started out slow, but at around the middle of it, we suddenly got a bunch of work to do. We'll talk about it more when it's relevant.
Also, we uploaded a new build of Project Contrivance!
You can download it here.
It has a new overworld, where you can choose the puzzle maps you want to play via warp pads, and you can also discover secrets (but it's mostly just WIP things for now).
Also, you can find a secret warp in each of the puzzle maps as well. They are pretty hard to find.
Other than that, there's a new puzzle map, too.
We hope you'll like it!
Showing posts with label multiplayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label multiplayer. Show all posts
2019/06/30
2017/03/29
Project Contrivance overworld thoughts!
This month, we've been thinking and working on Project Contrivance's structure. We decided to base the game on an overworld that houses all the levels - kind of like in the N64 era.
Level progression would be driven by beating levels and gaining resources for opening up more levels. The overworld would contain puzzles of its own, so you wouldn't have to beat every level to proceed, you could gather the remainder of the resources in the overworld, allowing you to bypass levels you don't like.
Each section of the overworld would end with a boss that goes with, and explains the previous levels' theme. Beating the end boss would open up the next section.
Other things we've thought about were giving players the ability to color their characters by finding special items in the overworld, adding competitive elements to multiplayer, and opening up bonus levels.
This system was inspired by the N64 era games like Super Mario 64. We'll show you more once we've progressed enough with development.
In other news, the Nintendo Switch has arrived, and it appears to be successful. We like the console's idea, and enjoy playing on it, so we've decided to keep the Joy-cons in mind when designing the game. We've even managed to make them work on our PCs so we can test the game with them!
Stay fresh!
Level progression would be driven by beating levels and gaining resources for opening up more levels. The overworld would contain puzzles of its own, so you wouldn't have to beat every level to proceed, you could gather the remainder of the resources in the overworld, allowing you to bypass levels you don't like.
Each section of the overworld would end with a boss that goes with, and explains the previous levels' theme. Beating the end boss would open up the next section.
Other things we've thought about were giving players the ability to color their characters by finding special items in the overworld, adding competitive elements to multiplayer, and opening up bonus levels.
This system was inspired by the N64 era games like Super Mario 64. We'll show you more once we've progressed enough with development.
In other news, the Nintendo Switch has arrived, and it appears to be successful. We like the console's idea, and enjoy playing on it, so we've decided to keep the Joy-cons in mind when designing the game. We've even managed to make them work on our PCs so we can test the game with them!
Stay fresh!
2017/02/28
Co-op puzzles in Project Contrivance!
Hi!
In the last month, we worked to implement local split-screen multiplayer in our puzzle game project that we dubbed Project Contrivance for now. The levels that are designed for two players can be played with a second player, or by switching between controlling two characters in single player.
We've added various nodes and boxes to spice up the gameplay: there are and, or, delay, inverter nodes and switches, and boxes that can be picked up that contain these functionalities. These boxes can be placed into sockets and will connect into the circuit, and in there they work just like the regular nodes.
Here is a long playthrough video of a test level where we fool around:
The little noises you hear are the player characters' form of communication: they have a positive and negative sound, and players can trigger these whenever they want to. We plan to add gestures to them, too.
Our big dilemma right now is deciding between deferred and forward rendering. We don't know what the Nintendo Switch is capable of yet, and deferred rendering is more costly, so I guess we'll have to wait and see, but it'd be nice to know in advance. We could just use deferred rendering and upscale, but we're not sure if it's worth it. With forward rendering, we'd lose SSAO and screen-based reflections (among other minor things), but by using MSAA, we could get a more sharp picture, which fits the theme (machines) perfectly. Forward rendering also handles transparency better.
Of course, on PC there will be graphics settings, so this won't be an issue, but planning for a console(s?) is different.
In the last month, we worked to implement local split-screen multiplayer in our puzzle game project that we dubbed Project Contrivance for now. The levels that are designed for two players can be played with a second player, or by switching between controlling two characters in single player.
 |
| Swapping between players |
Here is a long playthrough video of a test level where we fool around:
The little noises you hear are the player characters' form of communication: they have a positive and negative sound, and players can trigger these whenever they want to. We plan to add gestures to them, too.
 |
| Falling into deadly liquid |
 |
| Crushed by spikes |
 |
| ...physics... |
These GIFs are pre-alpha and about everything may be subject to change. We're going for functionality first, instead of graphics.
Our big dilemma right now is deciding between deferred and forward rendering. We don't know what the Nintendo Switch is capable of yet, and deferred rendering is more costly, so I guess we'll have to wait and see, but it'd be nice to know in advance. We could just use deferred rendering and upscale, but we're not sure if it's worth it. With forward rendering, we'd lose SSAO and screen-based reflections (among other minor things), but by using MSAA, we could get a more sharp picture, which fits the theme (machines) perfectly. Forward rendering also handles transparency better.
 |
| Deferred rendering |
 |
| Forward rendering |
Here's a gameplay video with forward rendering:
2015/11/07
Mini-update: Multiplayer!
Hey!
We're screwing around with multiplayer right now. Geril's Beat and I'm Cole. Moving around works, but I'm still learning about client-side and server-side stuff - most of the functions don't work on the client side because of that. So, WIP.
...which is nice.
But because pushing each other with puppets isn't much fun, we're making the fighting system next.
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