I'm making a super difficult platformer where you only control the jumping
in this video I'm going to be showing you what I've been working on but let's not get ahead
of ourselves just yet this is Lumberjack I mean plan four I mean Faceplant the final
name for the game is Faceplant after I released the last video somebody suggested this new name
on Twitch and I just had to go with it you play it as a plant with a face and you do this a lot
come on wishlist now on Steam and speaking of names the plant with a face still doesn't have
a name I asked you for some suggestions and I was absolutely Blown Away by all your creative ideas
if the plant is falling why not call it Autumn it looks like a spring leaf to me Flora the Little
Flower gives me bibo Vibes call him Herald name that little plantfield name idea clone plant plus
Johny sunny sunny sunny sunny seemed to be the most popular name Choice actually use the yellow
daisy as reference for this character and not a sunflower but I can totally see where you're
coming from with that there will be a name that just clicks and makes sense but I haven't found
it just yet so keep those suggestions coming but in the meantime let me show you where we're at
thank you I'll start off with the idea obviously before working on the core mechanics like the
player controller start to get to work on the story the concept art the character animation
while starting the level design which has been a huge task so far this here is when I change
the story the concept and the character so that was the last devlog and right now I'm about here
now this doesn't look like a huge amount of progress but considering this chunk here
took over a year simply because of the level Design This is actually insane progress and
I've started some of the extra systems and the level art which is the other huge task there's
still a lot to come like the music marketing polishing probably a lot more that I haven't
accounted for before the big release day but this section here is actually really
good progress let me show you what I've been up to in this video I was going to
share more about what the new story entails but I'm not going to do that anymore it's not
that I don't want to share it but I want you to discover it this decision has partly been
inspired by Half-Life which is a masterpiece the opening act in this game is one of the
most immersive experiences I've ever played and you're literally just traveling to work
looks like you're running late no cutscene or big speeches to sit through or anyone
telling you how you should feel you're just living and experiencing the world around you
Raymond so with this in mind I started working on the main way that you're going to experience
the world in my game which is the background art foreign [Music] ing of this game is when our plant
character awakens in a mess on the floor in this huge seed Vault above you there are shelves with
layers and layers of lifeless plant pots as you spring into life to tell the story of this place
through the environment I try to imagine what it might look like a semi-sterile lab setting
clean but still kind of worn with valves pipes Vents and science equipment everywhere
my first rough ideas for this were a bit too flat and bright though it was nice to get the idea out
the second roofs with perspective were a bit too dull and boring but the third porridge tasted just
right I mean the third attempt was just right I struggled a little bit with the style of the
backgrounds that I was going for but I got some huge inspiration from some of my favorite cartoons
going up like Looney Tunes Dexter's Lab and more in this attempt I added some simple perspective
the use of perspective in a flat 2D space will give more depth and make the area feel more alive
even though in the game you're basically just running along a straight line I learned some
of these techniques when analyzing Blasphemous actually you can check out my game art analysis
video to learn more on this put these sketches in the game to test them out and I'm pretty
happy with how they look there's no color yet but that's for good reason as I mentioned my two main
tasks are Level art and level design I made this checklist in notion to track my progress so far
I have about 52 individual screens planned so rather than finalize the artwork one at a time
I gotta work my way through the checklist from sketch to color to final to make sure everything
is cohesive before making any final touches I'll explain more about my process for level art in
a future video but with only four percent of it complete right now trust me there's a lot more of
this to come as for the level design I'm about 67 of the way through which I'm actually super happy
with I've been working on the level design for over a year and recently I've been making great
progress I finally finished designing this super difficult Cloud jumping area which is undoubtedly
the hardest area so far with some of the most brutal falling punishment and I'm currently
working with portals it's been really interesting trying to iron out the bugs and issues with these
as a design but there's still a long way to go with them I might be a lot further with the level
design actually but I've been procrastinating by testing out some new mechanics suggested by you
and a Twitter chat moving platforms it's a common thing in platform and games it's all about the
timing right you jump on at the right time and you jump off at the right time in order to make
progress on the level and the typical Platformers this is fine because you control when you attempt
to enter and exit the platform but in my game you are constantly moving there's this awkward
balance between trying to ensure you approach and exit the platform at the right time because
you can't control when you approach I found it to be really unpredictable and frustrating and away
which I just don't think is fair I want to avoid that at all costs in a skill based game like this
sometimes an idea sounds great on paper until you try it out you find actually that it's not fun or
it doesn't work with what you're trying to achieve but exploring is worth it anyway because it can
help you discover what is fun which in this case was the bouncing momentum you get when you exit
the platform at the right time obviously it's too random to implement with the moving platforms but
if you take away the movement you're left with springs which are super fun these are very simple
but it's a nice way to change up the feeling of the game with added verticality and different
range jumps where it's still important to be in control of your jump height it might sound like
I know what I'm talking about here but I really have no clue I actually stream a lot of this
process on Twitch come on two minutes folks two minutes let's get to the top final push [Music]
foreign and the feedback and ideas I get from chat is incredibly helpful getting
feedback has been absolutely key so if you have any ideas or suggestions then please
leave them in the comments because I read every single one of them so the next idea
I tried was conveyors or speed zones as I call them run in the direction of the
conveyor you go fast run in the opposite direction you go slow a very simple way
to change the pacing of the game and throw off your timing a little for an extra Challenge and
when you combine all of these level mechanics together you get some really fun platforming
plant Trails when you're running around this desolate lab one of the ideas is that plants
and Vines will be growing in your path as you restore nature to the world so
I started to work on those plant spawning mechanics I got them to spawn in as you run
and with some help from a Shader I found I got them swaying as well maybe a bit too much
but eventually I got them to respond correctly to the player movements I created and added in
some more designs for Randomness to make it look a bit more natural and I also added in
some z-plane Randomness too so they can spawn in front or behind the character so you can feel a
little more immersed these are by no means the final Graphics everything is placeholder at the
minute it's just a proof of concept really so that I know it works another idea that I have
is the more you play the game Petals on the character will begin to fall off as you run
this works as a story end no spoilers obviously and when you have one part left it kind of looks
like the character has a dope looking Mohawk which I just think is cool after this I started
researching how to properly save and load the game apart from some slight hiccups [Music] I
managed to get it all working and I made it so the game automatically saves so whenever
you close the game or go back to the main menu it will save your progress so if your rage quit all
F4 or claws after falling a long distance sorry but when you load in the game you will be at the
place that you fell and I obviously haven't made the main menu yet so I started to think about the
entire flow of the game with a little bit of ux design I'm trying to keep this as simple as
possible in my first ever game project that I released called pixel pirate me and my friends
spent more time designing the UI in ux of the game than the actual game itself we're at this super
complex store system with jail cells and you could pet the dog and even though I'm super proud of it
it just really wasn't necessary so I've learned my lesson there saying that it's time for me to
get back to the level design and the level art hopefully more updates soon thanks for watching