Even though I'm not using unity, I was wondering why 60fps felt smoother than 75fps for my game. Didn't know that camera/physics lock was even a thing. Randomly hearing it in this video made me realize I also had it and then fixed it. Now it's way smoother, thanks 👍
I looked back because I searched for a video in my history and I just saw that this video has 320 views. I'm shocked it only has this much, the editing, information and storytelling in this video is top notch, hope the algorithm sees this comment as positive engagement and pushes this video more lol
"If you have worked on a game before, you may be wondering, you actually shipped a demo!?" This made me burst out laughing. Well done! Thank you for this. 👍
I watched this, and immediately went and played the demo. Great game so far! it was so much fun to 100% and the challenge level at the end was super fun too! Love what you're doing, keep it up!
I recommend you guys to play ",bounce boing voyage"(by emulating) because that game is very similar in genre and gameplay and the game is sooo good. You could get inspired by it
I'm calling it now: there's gonna be a new way for Subscribey to be obliterated in every single devlog. Jokes aside, awesome job on the demo! I'm an aspiring gamedev and it's always really nice to see what goes into making a bigger game like this, and how different folks solve the problems along the way. I already played the demo & wishlisted a while back, so I'm super excited for when the game's done! Wishing you all the best of luck!
Instant wishlist. I've just recently gotten into gamedev and am making a wildly different type of game, but this one really got my attention. 3D platformer collectathons will always be my favorite genre and seeing a new one like this gets me so excited. Most other indie games for the genre feel like they try to copy too much with only minor differences. This game here really looks fresh, but also keeps the same feeling of the genre. I'm excited to see where you guys take this.
Also my answer for the question at the end is surprisingly, Roblox! Despite how simple it seems, having jumping, walking, even with the default player controls theres so many cool ways to obby you can perform! (Using shift and turning your character to the side to be able to get further, jumping around a wall thanks to shift-lock, being able to jump off a ladder and be blasted backwards instead and then fall of only going down, it's just impressive that with it's core mechanics so many things can be performed around it! (And i'll be honest, maybe shift-lock takes merit for 90% of roblox tricks due to how the camera works with collision and bugs, even flinging players sometimes)
Interesting the step of changing the fixed tilmestep. Reminds me that when working in VR you need to make sure it is set up to at least 90 frames or you might get dizziness
This video is great and the game's vertical slice was very fun. I saw you guys at MAG, though I didn't get a chance to try the demo there, so I'm glad you had something up on Steam already.
Wow that looks great! Something i think that would be cool for the game would be unlockable cosmetic items that you could unlock over time depending on stuff like how many Bells or Whistles you've collected, or which levels/areas you've completed, possibly even having costume's unlocked that are themed around the certain areas there unlocked. It would be a lot of work but would add a lot of fun and more incentive to collecting stuff and completing areas, and customising the little slime guys would definitely be fun, you could add different eye types and other things and it would be quite fun to mess around with!
Subscribed to your channel. You are now legally required to make a video on all the subjects you said you could make a full video on. Also since you asked what kind of video I'd like to see, I think it would be interesting to talk about how the team met and what made you guys want to work together in a game. I've been trying gamedev solo and I'd like to make a game with other people, but the opportunity just never presented itself.
A trick I use for the camera problem is to have an empty object on the player, then have the camera pivot lerp to the empty. You can do the same for rotation to make it smooth.. rotate empty object, slerp camera pivot rotation to match. You can drive your entire character movement off the empty object to make everything sync, which I think is similar to what you described early on in the video.
I think the only thing Id suggest changing about the character movement is two things, squash and stretch when landing/jumping/diving, Im sure theres some easy way to have that done in the character script by changing the scale of the model on certain axis whenever it does anything like that. and secondly maybe instead of little dust particles coming from the slime, you could have a little trail of slime, a simple texture that shrinks as disappears after a second. I could probably be more helpful with how these things are accomplished but I dont use unity so
There is some squash on landing whether you land on the ground or bump into a wall - my bad for not demonstrating that in the video. Stretch on the jump is a bit harder to visualize while not sacrificing game-feel (Anticipation is the first thing to go in games animation usually to instead promote responsiveness) but these are great points!! For a slime trail it's definitely possible, though we do want to avoid making the slime feel too...gooey? We're not really looking for a Gooigi from Luigi's Mansion 3 vibe. Doesn't mean it isn't worth exploring! Thanks so much for the feedback!
Game looks amazing. All these powers, mechanics sound really great. It reminds me of old school platformers I played long time ago. Definitely would purchase it as a kid or for kid. Great job and good luck on finishing this gem
So I played the game until I reached the third earth level, and at that point I knew that I had seen enough. Here are my thoughts: 1. Technical On a technical level, it's HIGHLY polished. Movement, camera, text, music, sound effects, _et cetera._ I did find that if you jump into things your shadow can be a little wonky. 2. Gameplay As far as actually playing the game, it's largely satisfying, especially how quickly and conveniently you can "swim" to the surface in water, how smooth the transition between your standard form and the boulder form is, how responsive the reactions and moves are, and your character's movement speed, jump speed, and general control. My only complaint is that the boulder doesn't turn quite as fast as I feel like he should. Either the tracks' angles should be a bit wider, or the sharpness at which you can turn should be a bit increased. I didn't see any game-play reason for me to be unable to turn a bit more sharply. 3. Level Design With one small exception (and it was a VERY small exception) the game does a fantastic job of directing you, giving you return paths and just generally NOT being annoyingly abstruse with what to do or where to go. I'd like to see that continued on into the final product, as a game like this-an independent game by untested creators, with fine but not impressive graphics-lives and dies on how fun it is from the get-go, and if the levels become frustrating at any point, especially early on, you're going to lose a lot of people. Especially people like me, who are happy to dip our toes, but aren't going to stick around one second longer than the game stops being entertaining. Speaking of which. 4. Purpose and/or Progression I know, it's a vertical slice, and it's largely meant to show the game mechanics themselves, and potential level designs, and the graphics, music and sound effects. But the reason that I tend to not play indie games is because they tend to be weak on story and "reason to keep going." Walking simulators have done well on the strength of their story progression alone, demonstrating how you can basically NOT EVEN HAVE A GAME and people will still play if there's a mystery ahead. This game, for me, is just not something I'd ever play, and it's NOT because I don't like platformers, but because there's no story. I know there will be a story, but listen, you said that you wanted your game to be what we THOUGHT games LOOKED LIKE when we were kids, right? Well, we also thought Mario 64 had a pretty rockin' story and fantastic character development, too. Looking back, it's obvious that these elements were no more than excuses to have a game, no more clever or important than, "Sorry, your princess is in another castle." As an adult, that doesn't cut it for me anymore. That's why you have games like Atomic Heart, with CONSTANT dialogue between the main character and his glove: Their dialogue is character-, story- and lore-building, which keeps you engaged beyond "kill random thing." Even the new Doom keeps you riveted to your television with great little cut-scenes, musical stings, dialogue and a bit of a mystery. So ultimately, for me, no matter how phenomenal this game turns out, no matter how tight the controls, how smooth and creative the animations, how fantastic the level design, if I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere except to the end of an obstacle course, I'm not going to keep playing. I had this same feeling while playing Klanoa, the collection that came out recently for the PC. The levels are FINE, the game-play is GOOD ENOUGH. I love the character design, the music is nice, I like the game mechanics. But the story? The story is for 8-year-olds, and I just couldn't be bothered to push through the game with so little motivating me. I don't know what this is. A plea? A lesson? A rant? I just know that, with a good writer on board, some passionate people who really care about making good dialogue, good characters and some kind of meaningful plot, this could be elevated from the "good" and "fun" game I'm sure it will eventually become, to a phenomenal game that people remember and return to because it held more than just fun jumping mechanics. But I'm sure I'm alone in this thinking.
Actually, we largely agree with you! I'd say of all the areas in the vertical slice, story is lacking the most. Our plan for the full game is to have an actual plot - each area with each hero has an actual conflict to resolve, and as they come together the plot thickens as the "big bad" makes itself known and escalates its plans. I hope you'll stay tuned for the rest of our development - and thank you for giving us a shot either way!
Yeah!! Something I didn't do a great job of in this video is showcase the different visual styles we have implemented - we support varying degrees of pixelation in our video settings. If you get a chance to try out the demo you should see which is your favorite!
Thank you!! We've run the numbers - if we do end up releasing on new Unity under the new rules we won't owe Unity a cent until the game grosses $1 million I figure if our biggest problem is that our game has grossed $1m...we don't really have a problem 😅
I'm only a month into learning game dev (unreal engine 5), but the more I learn and the more I watch videos like this, I get a better understanding of why games take so damn long. I am convinced that a LOT of the time is actually spent on learning rather than executing the development. Especially on tiny teams or for solo devs.
Downloaded the Game yesterday and got to play it a little today. Some quick things I'd like to point out: - The levels are a little empty in my opinion. I think you guys should add enemies and fill the Worlds a little more. - The jump feels a little floaty. It doesn't feel bad, but I think at the apex of the players jump you should increase the Players gravity to land quicker and make it more responsive. Many other platformers use this trick too :) (a squash and stretch when jumping/landing would also improve the Game feel) -lastly, I really don't like how when a player is located behind a wall the camera kinda just makes a bubble around the player. I think you Guys should make it like other Platformers, where instead of making a bubble around the player to make him completely visible, you should rather add a sort of shadow to indicate that the player is located behind that wall. I know I may have sounded a little harsh, but I'm really enjoying the Game so far and wanna congratulate you all on this amazing hidden Gem! As a Game dev myself, I know how hard it is to actually finish and publish a Game 😅
my favorite 3D platformer would be Super Mario Galaxy. It has a lot of content, even today it's one of a kind and there is a good balance of liniar and open stages something i also like about it is that the only "required" collectables in a stage are the power stars
you can manually advance physics. To use this, change all the FixedUpdate function name to lowercase, so Unity doesn't call it. make a script to call all the fixedUpdate logic. Every frame, call your fixedUpdate, and Physics.Simulate(tick) This gives better control: can be adjust to match frame rate, and makes more accurate physics sync across network
I remember when you made a game on core called roll em. I used to play it every single day. Im glad you were able to make a full game that looks similar to the one I used to play every day! You got a sub :)
I had a similar experience with cinemachine. I went through hell trying to get everything I needed out of it. When I finally did, the camera would just drift for some reason after about 10 minutes of gameplay. Could not fix it. Removed cinemachine from my project. 😔
I've been at the brink of "I'll just kill Cinemachine and start totally from scratch" like three times - never pulled the trigger and certain other aspects of the game like making cutscenes and such are easier now that we sorted it out, but it is an extremely annoying blackbox a lot of the time and I certainly don't blame you.
my favorite 3d platformer is robot 64 i'd say it's main strength is how high the skill ceiling is relative to the complexity of the movement. the movement is simple and intuitive, really easy to control, yet nonetheless can be combined in silly ways for speedrun tricks and lots of depth on this front you guys are doing very well. the movement is almost too intuitive,, in that after the 3 hours it took me to 100% the demo i felt like i was a god who could get a speedrun wr easily and knew all the tricks. probably not true, but that's the experience you get in 3 hours of gameplay cool ass game keep it up
Your modifiable physics update step size is going to lead to very subtly different behaviors for the various powers (stuff is like ever so slightly faster or slower by doing it on a higher refresh setup) so that's gonna be tricky for speedrunners to figure out, I think. Perhaps not your top priority, but if you somehow find the time, refactoring to make physics and visuals independent would be best. (Outside of competitive speedrunning, you'll probably not get much weirdness with your current approach though)
we've been lucky enough to have some speedrunners tackle the game and explore this. The main thing it seems to impact is a niche case when the player is wedged into geometry (you launch out at different speeds at different framerates) What we let you do is choose a particular frame rate in the settings, even if it doesn't match your display. The rule runners set is that if your display's rate is in that list, it's allowed since it's accessible to everyone. I updated a "Speedrun mode" display in the game to make it easy to confirm this for the purposes of verifying runs something to keep an eye on for sure!
Billie Bust Up might become my favorite; I've never seen a musical-based platformer (If you dont count Balonworld, which was a disaster) and its super good looking! I might try out Slime 64 though, it sounds cute :)
I mean, if you understand/learn how physics works in game engines this shouldn't really be an issue. But I guess most people dont. Not exactly Unity's fault, apart from the default setting. Like the look of the game a lot! Good job!
Great video and great game so far, as a mac and steam deck user, I find it's visual quite charming but slightly empty but I'm sure that'll be adressed soon. I wanna be a game dev as well, should I try to make projects or start from the ground up on unity or godot from an online course?
It's 0.2 because the actual time is 0.16666666.... and they got lazy, and round it up to make it pretty in code. 😂 That's why i use the superior representation of rate = 1/60 😅😅 obviously i use a variable named framerate instead of 60 but you catch the idea 😊
Fair, though the rounding error due to rounding to 1.6666667 or whatever only causes a problem like one frame in many thousands, so I feel like it's much preferable to having problems...constantly 😅
Seeing how the only thing we've released so far is totally free...nope! But we're hoping that offering a high quality demo for free will help us long-term, convincing players that we've got something really solid that's worth paying for when the full game is done!
Hey, great video. I’m definitely going to play the demo, but I have a question about the code. If making fixed update the same as time.deltatime, doesn’t it make it dependent on the frame rate. So a 120 fps would go faster than 60. Is your fix multiplying everything movement based by time.deltatime?
The trick is to make sure all actions that happen inside Fixed update are multiplied by Time.fixedDeltaTime - if it happens twice as often, the fixedDeltaTime is half the value, so the net result should be the same!
We'd love to come to consoles! Since we are on our own the first step is for us to be approved for console development by the assorted companies, so here's hoping!
We built the vertical slice as a way to lock-in a lot of our gameplay and systems. By making the demo free we can maximize the amount of Playtesting and feedback we get and can use that to make the full, paid game the best it can be. Since we're a brand new team with basically nothing to our name, players have no reason to trust we can deliver something good. If they try out the vertical slice they can hopefully see "oh wow this is pretty good" and look at the trailer for the full game and go "oh wow and there's even more in the full game"! Think of it as playing the long game :D
13:16 Ty for talking about this, the amount of unity games I have just not given a chance to the point of simply not playing things made in unity is so high cuss of this, Its a source of input lag as well. Something to note about setting the physics step higher is that is that if your fps drops below the target fps things will feel bad and it might hive significant performance impacts, I dont know how this is done on unity but another thing you can do is lower the physics tick to 60 and then use the frame rate to dynamic interpolate what is happing
