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GIGABUSTER is now live on KICKSTARTER!!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gigabuster/gigabuster-blazing-action-platformer-demo-available

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Some asteroid stage gameplay. It's a low-gravity stage where you'll unlock the grappling hook!

2 days left on the GIGABUSTER Kickstarter, check it out if you like #Megaman X or Zero!

Check it out and play the demo at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/326257143/gigabuster-fiery-action-platformer-demo-available

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Changes 12/9/2018

After some feedback, there will be a some changes after the demo. Jumps will hopefully feel more natural, minimizing the need for wall jumps or double jumps. Some of this is in the updated demo, but it will be tweaked a bit further in the final. Jump height and gravity are increased. And while I view double jumps as more for course correction than gaining height, I'll see what you guys think of it.

Wall-jumping will feel a little bit closer to its inspirations. Some mentioned that being able to grab walls on ascent makes them feel "sticky," so that will be replaced. Indications for wallsliding (like sounds and effects) will be improved slightly.

Liz' run animation will hunch her forward a bit more (this is in a few of the more recent GIFs I've posted).

The Oil Rig's oil won't slow down your movement speed anymore, and all fire created by the oil will linger for a lot less time (much closer in length to Bjorn's boss fight oil). Areas with oil will be increased in size to compensate. This is mostly because of feedback regarding getting stuck waiting for cycles to reset. For example, waiting for the torches to turn off over oil. This change keeps the design in place, but reduces waiting time significantly.

(Should mention, I don't want to remove "all" waiting/observation periods, only shorten them a bit).

A couple rooms will be tightened up to prevent you from killing enemies off screen.

And of course, jumping off ladders.

With how the game is being approached, the MMZ games in particular encouraged a ton of dash-jumping and air-attacking through stages at mach speeds. To an extent, I wanted to avoid this and "force" the player to tackle encounters. As a result, a lot of enemies aren't one-shottable. The addition of finite money, for example, is to encourage you to stay and engage with encounters instead of dash-jumping over them. However, skipping some encounters may be more possible with other abilities (like your L1 grappling hook, or flare-dashing into enemies to airdash over them).

As always, feel free to e-mail me at mrgigablaster@gmail.com . I’ll compile a list of the most common sentiments and see if I can take a swing at them :)

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Thought this rail grind looked pretty rad.

(We’re also on Kickstarter!)

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GIGABUSTER is now live on KICKSTARTER!! All reblogs are loved and appreciated!

Find it here!: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/326257143/gigabuster-fiery-action-platformer-demo-available/description

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GIGABUSTER Level Design

In preparing for GIGABUSTER's level designs, I spent a good amount of time dissecting the structure and pacing of older Megaman and Megaman X titles, going so far as to measure the amount of time between enemy encounters, the distance traveled, the amount of space given for movement, etc.

I combined all of these observations with nuggets from old interviews with Megaman developers, and came up with a "formula" of sorts for building out levels. This formula involves a few rules that I wanted to write about.

1: No more than 3 elements on screen at once

This was something from a Megaman 1 interview you can find [here]. Not only would more than 3 interactive elements on screen be taxing on NES hardware, but it was also difficult to parse a scene quickly for the average player. You could also build from this with the idea of "focus," having the elements you'll need to pay attention to grab the player's eye in a specific order (similar to focal points, where your eye will immediately center on a specific point before wandering elsewhere).

(An example of 3 enemies at once from Cut Man’s stage. In early Megaman it was also rare to have more than 1 enemy type mixed in.)

To make sure I wasn't putting more than 3 elements on screen at once, I tile a 1920x1080 square in the background of every level in GIGABUSTER. That way, I can measure the distance between elements and the amount of them within the game's screen size.

On top of this, GIGABUSTER uses a ton of custom camera regions, which will hover the camera to certain points when walked into. Enemies will only activate when they're on screen, so this not only helps to keep elements in focus, but also makes sure enemies will activate predictably.

2: Four-step design

This is something you can learn more about [here].

Four-step is also something written about by early Megaman developers, though their versions of it differed slightly. Early Megaman games only introduced mechanics in "sets." For example, a screen that introduces a Met would be followed by two to three more Met screens. This is really prominent in almost all old Megaman stages; you can almost take your pick of any of them and see this in action. Here's [Wood Man] for example. The entire stage is is 4 sets of 3-step enemy introductions, with very little crossover between the enemies being introduced.

Typically each set would focus on only one enemy type, with others only introduced to "mix up" the 3rd encounter.

Simply put, Four-step pacing usually goes like this: First encounter: An easy introduction/tutorial to an enemy type. Low risk. Second encounter: A slightly harder encounter with the enemy, either by putting it in a less convenient position or situation. Third encounter: The hardest one. Ideally, this one should build on the enemy in an interesting way. Typically by combining it with other enemies or mechanics. Fourth encounter: The wind-down, mop-up or finale. This one should be easier, usually mirroring the second encounter in a way that leaves the player feeling rewarded for overcoming the climb to the third encounter.

For an example of this in GIGABUSTER, take the Grenadier section of the Oil Rig.

In this set, you can safely drop into the first encounter whenever you like. You also get to see the enemy's attack pattern before dropping down. The drop is positioned so that you'll be standing underneath the grenade's arc, so even after dropping you're mostly safe from damage. In the second, you no longer have the height advantage. You have to approach the Grenadier head-on, meaning you'll have to avoid his attacks normally. It's a less ideal positioning. The third combines the second with a new enemy type. The Driller makes it difficult to sit in one spot, meaning you can't stand under the grenade's arc for too long. This one is the hardest encounter. (However, as a bonus self-imposed challenge, leaving the Driller alive lets you jump on its head to grab an HP UP.) The fourth mixes in torches, but they're static and don't prevent you from hiding under the grenade's arc. They may make the section look difficult, but it's closer to the 2nd in challenge.

Even if these encounters are very difficult, the bookending of the first and fourth will leave the player feeling better about the situation than they otherwise would've, perhaps making them feel more likely to give the set another go if they lose.

Another great example of this bookending is in Super Meat Boy. Usually (but not always), the end of a level in Meat Boy will have a slightly easier stretch, making you feel better about the level even if the majority of it was extremely tough.

Finally, I'll add that while four-step design is a good way to lay out encounters, GIGABUSTER doesn't adhere to it 100%. There are occasional mix-ups of other encounters along the way, hopefully making the stage not feel quite as formulaic as it otherwise would've while still keeping the satisfying pacing of four-step for most encounters.

3: Speed

Finally, something I can't cite by any interviews or videos. Speed is very subjective from game to game (even within the Megaman series). This rule simply measures the amount of time the player spends on encounters and levels. Megaman developers have been open about how they intentionally design their games to be finishable in about an hour, so I tried to translate this into encounter length as well. Movement speed also plays into this, as games with slower-moving characters often slow down even more when played at HD/Widescreen resolutions, as the levels themselves become wider. I wanted to keep the speed and pacing of Megaman Zero games inparticular consistent, even when translated to an HD Widscreen format, which also meant speeding up the characters beyond their original inspirations.

While I don't have any direct links, I remember reading about how play sessions are best divided into time segments. In JRPG's, for example, the sweet spot for a normal encounter's length is about 3 minutes maximum, ideally ending in around 3 turns.

For GIGABUSTER, I wanted stages to be complete after roughly 10 minutes of gameplay. But for games that push longer playtimes, you may notice that these times often work in multiples of 5-10. For example, I often found that Shovel Knight stages would last between 15-30 minutes on a first playthrough, from both personal experience and from watching others.

Also noteworthy, some games are much slower paced, whether because they like a run or dash button, or because they're very puzzle and platform heavy. An important thing with a game like GIGABUSTER is making sure the momentum doesn't dip too much. There are certainly sections (like the elevator in the Oil Rig) where progress slows down, but in general I like to think most sets of encounters has a similar range of length to completion.

There are certainly other rules I haven’t mentioned here (integrating optional challenges is another big one), but these are the three that come to mind the most when designing GIGABUSTER. Thanks for reading!

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GIGABUSTER’s Kickstarter will be within the next couple days, so keep your eyes peeled  👀

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It's been a very menu week.

Getting customizable keyboard controls to work with the bindable weapon buttons was a journey. Still have to do Key icons for binded weapons, and possibly customizable gamepad controls. It's mostly functional now, though.

And for clarification, you can bind up to 3 weapons to either X, Y, or RT (I'm debating letting you make B bindable too, since using LT to dash makes B up for grabs.)

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(Repost) Some new effects for melee attacks and explosions (explosions are slightly updated from this clip to incorporate more of the swirls from the older versions after some feedback).

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(Old) Street-level gameplay in the WIP city.

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(Older post) Here’s the combo meter for giga attacks. You can build it up by hitting enemies, then unleashing once it reaches 100%. (with a bonus multiplier for hitting them while the wheel is still spinning)

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Some more car bouncing and rail grinding and fence climbing in the Harbor stage. Should probably move that last guy further away from the checkpoint though (got smacked a few times during recordings).

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This time it’s just bubbles, bois.

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Here’s some more of the rail grinding (haven’t shown it in forever) and fence climbing in the Harbor stage.

Rails, hooks, and fences appear a lot more later in the game, since the early set of four stages are more of a learning period.

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Early WIP sneak peek at the Bank/Stock Exchange stage (not sure which it’ll be named yet.)

Lots of platforming on cash mountains, and gold brick walls.

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A speedy playthrough of the first upper section of the oil rig stage.

Hooking things is pretty useful for speed.

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Asteroid blastin'.

Your gravity's also slightly lower in the asteroid stage, so you fall slower and jump higher.