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4/17/24, Field Report 13: 'Supernaturals'
Happy April! Been focusing on finishing up the supernatural powerups & remaining levels.
In addition to the Freezphere that freezes all enemies into traversable blocks of ice, there's the Exploder to destroy enemies, the Inverter to invert gravity, & the Curse to turn all enemies into Spooky.
Should be fun!
-Nick
3/17/24, Field Report 12: 'Ketchup'
The game can now be wishlisted on Steam! Hooray!
Turns out getting savedata working had less hurdles than expected- it only took a day or two. It supports multiple profiles per Steam user & Steam Cloud.
I finished the last remaining enemy model & I'm animating him now. Dunno if I'll give Pedro a model or not though as it turns out that I don't really like modelling characters.
Starting to read into some storytelling stuff as I draft the postcards. It might be neat.
As for the levels, I think I'll aim for around 20 levels per theme, more or less for better pacing.
Fun fun!
-Nick
2/17/24, Field Report 11: 'Flowering'
Alrighty so, I want to get done savedata functionality & Steam Cloud stuff before the Steam page goes live. I've got screenshots ready, a trailer, promotional art- it's all going good.
Beyond that, I overhauled the level unlocks so that you can unlock levels in bulk & complete them asyncronously per set. Also got a neat part where you can unlock a skip on the Junkyard map. It's getting there!
-Nick
1/17/24, Field Report 10: 'Shiny'
Why hello there!
The backgrounds are progressing as expected with likable but slow results. I've been doing each asset in a piece seperately, then combining them & filling in the surroundings. This process seems ideal thus far.
As for for feature additions, I finally got around to the in-game item shop. You'll be able to spend the treats on tools, supernaturals, & unique stuff to summon in during gameplay to solve additional situations or simply help out.
Menus also got the attention they deserve, the Scrapbook is coming together where you'll be able to view collected Postcards, Cassettes, & Stats, and strings not only support localization now, but they reflect controller inputs.
Almost there!
-Nick
12/17/23, Field Report 9: 'I Dunno'
Oi oi worked with a couple of lads for some keyart & a couple of the remaining character models for the Rat & Mecha Bee. I still have one more to do myself.
My main concern right now is that I don't 'connect' with the rendered backgrounds, so I'm going to attempt to go back to digitally painting them, in bulk this time. They work, albeit more difficult to split into layers for shader animation, but they just don't vibe with me & they're not that fun to model.
As for recent feature additions, got some cool ones: Spawners that really put the pressure on you, fake ground that crumbles where you don't expect, and dark levels where you can't see your surroundings.
A Merry Christmas for you!
-Nick
11/17/23, Field Report 8: 'Elaboration'
Greetings! So this time around I've been filling the established systems with content. More tilesets, more backgrounds, more music, & more levels.
The themes that should be expected are the Park, Junkyard, Sewer, Abandoned Factory, & Operations Hive, plus two additional themes for bonus levels & a bonus world. In accordance, more world maps have been added.
Regarding collectables, I want to expand them to include casettes that override map music in addition to postcards that depict story, but this may not come to fruition- we'll see.
You have a great day!
-Nick
10/17/23, Field Report 7: 'Composition'
This month in: making stuff...
Mostly just a lot of testing. I'm preparing for focus testing with a couple of people.
As for features, a couple did make it in such as Jumping Boggies that jump around the map until they're rescued & a particle system. Other than that, few graphical improvements.
That's all for now, bye!
-Nick
9/17/23, Field Report 6: 'Direct Approach'
You there! Very modest progress this month.
The Mean Boggie finally got a model, enemies got alert sounds, spent a lot of time iterating on the backgrounds (they're animated now), a bunch of bug fixing, added secret levels unlocked via collectable postcards, the Freezphere, and probably some other stuff.
Short post, but gotta get back to work ohohoho.
Aw yeah!
-Nick
8/17/23, Field Report 5: 'Cohesion'
Welcome the back! Got a little bit of gameplay this time- showing off the level builder & then playing that level in the game.
There are two new enemies: one of them mimics or mirrors your movement & the other walks around randomly, stunning you or knocking you off ladders upon contact. New gameplay features include teleporters, enemy respawn points, scaffolding (as seen in video), cleats, & per-level challenges.
Beyond that, one of the next things I definitely want to do is a kind of in-game item shop (no micros lmao) or something like the mushroom houses where you get free stuff by doing a minigame. Sounds neat on paper.
Welp, GG. See ya!
-Nick
7/17/23, Field Report 4: 'Layering the Cake'
Bruh mega big work. Interpolating physic tick logic over frames, generation guides, custom level support, a level builder, Steam integration, some graphics stuff, and many bug fixes. Also a map for level select.
At one point, I started fresh because I figured rewiring the level scope would be a nightmare because I broke it to support custom levels, but with generation guides, everything worked out. Now I use the builder to make the core levels.
I sent it out to my lads to see what they'd come up with, and one of them ended up making obstacle courses for Spooky, the pathfinding enemy, with lots of edge-cases!
Enjoy some pictures this time around !
The goodbye for now.
-Nick
6/17/23, Field Report 3: 'Best Friend'
He is John Johnson, and he's going to find his lost boggie, Creek. Now he's got a model!
Welcome back! I've been working on overall level structure, sign buttons, monkey bars, music, sound, and more- as well as the store page.
It's kinda insane how far this has come. It's really coming together & it's actually fun. For now, it's time to work on more levels & gameplay elements. Then, a map screen of some kind.
Here's the newest gameplay video for you!
Take care!
-Nick
5/17/23, Field Report 2: 'Fresh Paint'
The hello again! As you can see, pictures!
Prerendered sprites with an animated-esque flair- for now, there are Boggies, Molemen, & ... The Spooky...
Beyond that, I've mainly been focusing on general entity stuff, as well as more precise pathfinding as of recent. It's been absolutely wrecking me to get working, and I just solved it!
Rock hard progress no less & I'm super excited for the next stages- it's time to start planning ahead!
See you then.
-Nick
4/17/23, Field Report 1: 'Trials'
Good fun in the land of wherever this project is supposed to narratively take place! I've constructed & come to actively understand my small codebase so as to hone in on a nice demo.
Still pending prerendered models, sfx, music (piece used here is filler from a different project), and a background, but check out this neat clip.
The core loop: rescuing puppies & digging holes to trap enemies- a formula inspired by series of games I loved to play as a child.
Until next time, a nice day for you.
-Nick
3/17/23, Field Report 0: 'World Anew'
Well, that's that- the Niknokination Collaboration now exists! Already got one project deep in the works, but it still requires yet some foundational work, let alone stuff like graphics.
Other projects are pure concept rn.
Here we freaking go bois.
-Nick
Indie dev based in Wisconsin!
The Niknokination Collaboration!
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