Suzy Cube Update: September 29, 2017

#SuzyCube #gamedev #indiedev #madewithunity 

This week did NOT go as planned! We've been plagued with internet troubles since a power outage last Sunday, derailing much of my work as I tried to troubleshoot the issue.

Through a combination of borrowed wifi and borrowed routers, I was at least able to finally have that Skype meeting with Noodlecake, although a day late. I also got some small tweaks and fixes done and another level decorated.

Call Me Maybe

So, first off, I had my onboarding call with Noodlecake. We went through their usual checklist of things that need mentioning at these kinds of meetings. I'm going to be away for the next few weeks, visiting family, so my contributions to the game will be spotty at best. Hopefully they will be able to get started on some work in the mean time. I'm nervous to have someone poking around in my project for the first time, but I'm excited by what suggestions they may have for improving things.

Fixer Upper

I did get a little done despite the aforementioned unforeseen complications which befell me this week. I discovered an issue with the French translation. I had some help from my cousin's wife with stuff like level descriptions, but it never occurred to me to tell her not to use commas in them. The localization files are CSV files or Comma Separated Values files... So... Ya... If commas are used to separate the data entries, then using commas IN the data can be rather problematic... No biggy. The fix was quick and it was a good excuse to make a couple other small changes to the translation.

Following my full playthrough of the game last Friday, I had a number of small items added to my to-do list. These were mostly small issues which were easy to fix. One level which got a little extra love was Level 2-3, an icy level filled with switch activated Temporary Blocks.

What time is it?

One thing I did was to add a bunch of Extra Time pickups throughout the level. I just felt the time limit was a bit punishing to players wanting to explore a bit. The reason I tend to opt for pickups rather than just a longer time limit is that the pickups are simply more exciting. A longer time limit is likely to go unnoticed but when players grab an Extra Time pickup, they feel a sense of reward. The end result is the same, but the associated feeling is quite different.

A long way to go

I also tweaked the timing on this final Star challenge. The translucent green blocks represent the Temporary Block bridge which extends when the switch is activated. The duration of the the blocks was such that only a perfectly timed trip back and forth was possible. I opted to extend the timer on the blocks a bit to give players a little extra time to grab the Star and get back safely before the bridge disappears.

A Rockin' Forest Foray

And, with the internet down, how better to fill my time than to put on a podcast and lose myself in level decoration?

Diving into trouble

The lucky recipient this week was Level 4-1. The level is kind of a mix of forested looking areas and rocky ones making healthy use of the Ground Pound power-up.

Greener pastures

I like this level's atmosphere so it was fun to give it a nice coat of paint.

What's the Rush

I also decided to make a subtle but important change to most of the walking Skull enemies. You see, they almost all have some sort of rushing behaviour where they b-line for Suzy when she gets close.

Come get me!

The change I implemented was to have it so a Skull will only rush Suzy if it is on screen. Now, this is based off the invisible bounding sphere Unity uses to quickly determine visibility for culling purposes, so an enemy COULD still rush from off screen, but enemies which are clearly not visible will no longer surprise players by running into frame for a cheap kill. As a designer, I don't want players to ever feel cheated and I love how subtle tweaks like this can gently tip the scales in favour of players.

InterNOT

As previously mentioned, the rest of my time was spent wrestling with our down-and-out internet. It's looking like I'm going to need a new modem, which the ISP says they don't have... But they'll call me when they find one... Oh, this place... Funny enough, what bums me out the most about this is that, since our internet speeds here are so slow, I always look forward to downloading games to my XBox while I'm away. I guess Cuphead and A Hat in Time won't be waiting for me when I get back after all...

On that note, ciao for now and for a bit. I hope to get a little work done while I'm away from my desk, but I don't know how much of it will be update worthy or whether or not I'll get around to writing those updates. So, please, keep checking in, I should be back to posting regularly in a few weeks!