Arcade mode levels and huge fireballs
Hello! Right after writing my previous newsletter I made an unexpected pivot away from music and spent the last two weeks working on my next game’s arcade mode instead.
Taking a break from music
In short, I burned myself out by going straight from learning 90s arcade jazz music production and arrangement to trying to make a full soundtrack. Making music is difficult for me at times, and two weeks ago it reached the point where I tried and failed to finish four different tracks in a row. So I’m taking a break from making music for now and I’ll come back to it another time.
This has happened to me before on previous games and it always turned out fine, so I’m not worrying about it too much. I’ll make some great music once I’ve gotten some rest.
Arcade mode
I wanted to get back into my comfort zone after spending so long on music, so I’ve been working on my game’s arcade mode game mechanics and making some levels!
Instead of just giving the player a huge health bar that’s supposed to last for the entire level, I added treasure chests containing health items. I love how you can pick up barrels in beat em ups and throw them at enemies, but this is a game about hitting things with hammers so I made it so you can hit treasure chests at enemies instead of picking them up. It feels great!
With the health system sorted out, I built a full sized penguin-themed arcade stage and gave it a test run.
I loved it for the most part, but it made a few of the game’s existing issues more obvious. The biggest nitpick I had was that it was hard to consistently snipe faraway enemies, especially with their unpredictable movement behaviors, so…
The fireballs from launched enemies are way bigger now! Once an enemy has travelled a few grid squares, the fireball grows to three tiles wide and can wipe out tons of enemies. I love how it feels, and it somehow still isn’t overpowered because it doesn’t save you from other nearby threats. I tested it out in the level I had just made and it made a huge difference!
Visually it’s a bit weird that all these penguins are hanging out in a grassy field, but I’ll fix that once I get around to drawing the rest of the game’s art.
My only issue with the gameplay is that the player’s bombs weren’t feeling very useful, so I cranked up their area of effect to 5×5 grid squares (instead if 3×3) and gave the player a ton of invincibility frames after using a bomb. After making some other gameplay improvements, like making it much easier to see when you take damage and adding some invincibility frames whenever you pick up an item, I built another arcade stage full of destructible rocks and fire-themed enemies:
I’m pretty happy with this one too! Arcade mode is intense, especially on Very Hard difficulty like in these videos, but it’s a great way of stress-testing the gameplay mechanics before I build a full adventure mode.
A few things about the fire-themed arcade stage bug me a bit, such as how it uses fire chickens in large open rooms where it can be a chore to chase them down, but they’re all easy problems to fix.
There are still some improvements I would like to make to the core gameplay mechanics too. It’s a bit stange that there are so many health pickups that don’t do anything when you’re already at full health, yet there aren’t any ways for the player to gain bombs. I’d like to give the game a scoring system too, which might end tie into the health/bomb economy.
Anyway, those things can all be fixed later. For now, I’m going to experiment with some of the more bizarre ideas that I have for stages. They might end up being complete duds but hopefully I’ll be have some wild new stages to show off next time!
Anything else?
I watched Sabrina in "Plight of the Artist", a 1995 short animation by Eric W. Schwartz that was made on an Amiga computer. I'm shocked at how high quality it was, and I was even more shocked to find out that the main character starred in a webcomic that started running in 1996 and is still going today with a Patreon, 28 years later! It was a fun read, and I especially recommend checking out the earliest archived strips if you have any nostalgia for the 90s internet.
I loved this post from kastel on cohost too, about how much creators appreciate kind comments from players. As someone who makes things and is friends with other people who make things, I can confirm that this is true! Writing a comment about how much you enjoyed a game or comic or album or anything else really is one of the kindest things you can do for the people who made it. I'm going to try to leave some nice comments about other people's games and comics in the next few days, and I recommend that you do the same if there's anything you enjoyed. On that note, thank you so much to everyone who has ever left a comment on any of my posts, replied to any of my newsletter emails or said anything nice about any of my games on social media or in a review. It really means a lot.
That’s all I’ve been up to. Hope you all have a great couple of weeks and I’ll see you next time!