developingphasor

[developingphasor]

Super Ninja Star Post Mortem

Finally Super Ninja Star is out and available to play for free: https://phasor.itch.io/super-ninja-star Its been a long couple of months fixing this game up, giving it a fresh coat of paint and adding that polish that it needed. Throughout development our plans changed constantly and that was due to juggling work along with this project. At the start we planned for much more features to be added but realistically we just did not have enough time to make all the changes and updates we would have liked.  I primarily took care of game design, art, VFX, audio design and directed the project. Going into the design I knew I wanted to limit animation a fair amount to save us time and this helped influence our games themes, characters and overall mechanics. Although it would have been amazing to have our level editor incorporated into the game, it was around 50% finished. It would have allowed us to generate levels much faster and eventually would have been added for the public to have fun making and sharing levels with each other.  I’ve learnt optimizing a game and planning its structure early is the best course of action, saves a crazy amount of time when you don’t need to look through everything in your hierarchy for one object. Plus having things organized is just common decency when working in a team.  For our audio we had a friend Gage (https://kassich.newgrounds.com/) produce a track based on an early build of the game we sent him. He did an amazing job based on the little input I had on direction and we were impressed with how it came out in such short notice. As for SFX, I recorded some sounds in the recording booth, modified royalty free assets and compiled various audio from free sites that had the right fitting sounds. I think recording your own sounds is the best option since you know what your looking for and can retry as much as you need till it comes out right.  Moving forward I’d love for Super Ninja Star to gain some popularity so we can further develop this into a full game with all the features we wanted but had to cut. We were wanting the level editor, an in game shop for skins and characters, level selection with a few premade stages and a multiplayer battle mode. 

[developingphasor]

Harmonique Trial is a mini adventure in which you must collect the 5 musical notes shown above to proceed through Melody gate. Each note holds some kind of power and must be used to discover the next following note. Designing the riddles for these notes was fun and figuring out cool ways to use them.

 The notes powers are as follows:

Green = Yes (positive note that can answer questions)

Yellow = Light (casts a light field around the player)

Orange = Force (casts a force field that pushes around the player)

Red = No (negative note that can answer questions)

Blue = Final note to get through Melody gate

[developingphasor]

In Harmonique Trial I wanted to do something a little more unique for our pause menu and controls screen. We created a script that transitions the camera upon pausing to view the waterfall in the background with the buttons overlaying. When the player selects the controls button, the camera and transitions to view the forest. Going back will display the waterfall again, and closing the pause menu will flick back to the players 3rd person camera.

Originally we had a plain looking pause menu with simple buttons on a canvas, but after these changes it made the menu far more appealing.

[developingphasor]

One of the main feelings I was trying to capture in Super Ninja Star was the satisfaction of playing with a yoyo. The swinging mechanics were all built with this in mind and the players movement does feel very reminiscent of a yoyo swinging. A few extra things were added to sell this feeling, such as the rotation of the player as he travels through the ocean waters. The speed of the rotation is determined by the players speed, so the faster you move the faster you spin. Another detail is the straps on the players head which use cloth physics to trail behind the player depending on which direction you move in.

[developingphasor]

Throughout the large stage in Super Ninja Star you’ll come across some coins which may or may not be in hard to reach places or just out of view. There are 50 in total, 5 between each checkpoint. Few have collected them all.

You can also see that the player falls through green roof platforms, he can only stand on the red/orange floor platforms. This means that the player cant stop and stand in many places, instead he needs to tether and hang around. When walking on floor platforms however the floor has some high friction which discourages players to rely on floors and get comfortable with swinging about.

[developingphasor]

Here you can see a couple of basic particle effects. I created a simple splatter effect which is triggered when the player fires the tether, also 2 different bubble particles for the background and the players bubble trail. When an enemy is killed a puff of smoke with a few cartoon stars pops out to make sure the game remained kid friendly and also fit the visual style of the game. There are also fireworks that trigger in the last area of the game to celebrate your accomplishment since its not the easiest game to complete.

[developingphasor]

Super Ninja Star features one large stage that is split up by checkpoints into smaller levels. Upon passing through the checkpoints red light beam the checkpoint is triggered and saved as your re-spawn, a green flash triggers at the base as a new green light beam raises indicating its activation. 

We questioned multiple times whether to split the level into smaller segments and remove checkpoints but I decided against it since I prefer to remain immersed rather then being sucked out to a menu each time I complete a level. This structure also means that players may not complete the game on their first try but will have an easier time if they return to play again.

[developingphasor]

These are the 3 enemy types in Super Ninja Star. First being a puffer fish that floats up and down, second is the grouper which swims horizontally and the third is an underwater mine that you would probably want to avoid. 

We have a few others that we want to add to the game at some point such as the pulse mine and jellyfish but they’ll need new levels designed with them in mind.

[developingphasor]

Here are a couple of action shots showing Ninja swinging into action. Using his gastric tether he clings to ceiling platforms, swinging and launching deeper and deeper into the oceans vastness. Use enemies to spring off for some extra momentum, but watch that you don’t connect with them while tethered. 

Super Ninja Star is a student project prototype with ambitions to become something bigger and better. Watch this space =D

[developingphasor]

This is the first concept for the map in Harmonique Trial. The final map is basically the exact same since everything except the grave worked well and flowed nicely as you turn the camera around the environment. The grave was rotated and reduced in size since it sits up a slope at the highest point of the map.

I wanted to try keep everything fairly compact to avoid players getting lost or feeling like the map was too empty. See for yourself by downloading and experiencing the game for yourself at https://phasor.itch.io/harmonique-trial

[developingphasor]

Super Ninja Star’s Ready

We have finished most areas of development,all that remains is audio. We have a friend working on the background track and its sounding good so far but needs a little more time to refine and once its ready we’ll implement it and balance out volumes. We finished the final area of the game and everything’s playable from start to finish.

Expecting to release next week and can’t wait to see how new players find the game.

[developingphasor]

Super Ninja Star Nearing!

We’ve decided on an ending, this week I worked on a couple models along with a few other adjustments to UI, VFX, Hitboxes etc.

We’re adding final polish and last touches to level design as we incorporate a couple of enemy types we were still debating whether to add, Pulse mines and Jellyfish.

After we finish what we’re working on, we intend to add fireworks and finalize the audio then that should just about wrap up development. We’ve set up the itch page and are aiming to have it released within 2 weeks.

[developingphasor]

Work has resumed on Super Ninja Star!

We’ve been working on multiple areas and features, such as:

- Particle effects for bubbles, enemy deaths and checkpoints.

- Reworked the Title Screen to update the visual style.

- Added a couple of new enemy types.

- Upgraded the Main Menu.

- Replaced all assets on Main Scene.

Along with some ideas for how to finish the level, whether we want a boss fight or to end it on the results screen. All depends on how much time it takes since we have approximately a month left. 

[developingphasor]

Harmonique Trial is released! finally!

It’s been in the works for a while and we’ve been hard at work polishing up bits and pieces to make it cleaner and more user friendly. Touched up multiple areas and VFX along with much more little features and such. Here’s hoping players enjoy it!

https://phasor.itch.io/harmonique-trial

[developingphasor]

Over the weekend my partner and me participated in the 48 hour GMTK Game Jam. It was our first game jam and it was a great learning exercise since it was just the 2 of us, it was pretty much crunch time the whole way through. The theme was to build a game that fit a genre but lacked one of the fundamental mechanics that is identified within that genre. We went with an endless runner without the constant running while still trying to cover as much distance as well as avoiding incoming meteors. We called it ‘Drum Roll Please!’ and you can check it out here = https://phasor.itch.io/drum-roll-please

[developingphasor]

Another week down and a lot has progressed with Harmonique Trial. We’ve finished most of the audio adjustments and vfx, a few bits of lighting along with small UI fixes such as tutorial text closing when the pause menu is brought up. Did a bit of play testing with other people to get feedback and for now we have our final list of changes and fixes that we hope to finish next week to be able to finally launch. 

[developingphasor]

Continued work on both projects but have been sick for a majority of it so didn’t get as much as I would have liked done. Harmonque Trial will be the first one completed and released, been working on audio stuff and just fine tuning timing among a few other things such as camera positions. Feel like we’re getting close since when we run into problems they’re not game breaking or cause hours of work, mostly just little tweaks to animation, audio and overall timing.