Hey guys! Well, like the title suggests, it’s been far too long since we’ve had a blog post about actual game design! Things have been crazy with the rebrand, studio redesign, Collapsus Kickstarter prep, and OGDE… but this time, it’s all about that sweet, sweet dev!
We got a lot of wonderful feedback from OGDE, so many of you loved the Collapsus demo we provided and some of the ideas mentioned for improvements will more than likely be implemented into the actual game in one form or another. For instance, a few of you asked if Collapsus would feature multitouch on tablets, and while we had previously played around with it in the normal game mode, it really made it too easy. Ultimately, though, we feel that while it’s probably not appropriate for Standard Mode, with a bit of a difficulty boost, a multitouch Special Mode would be really wonderful!
Oddly enough, though, some of what we’re currently implementing (as of this week) is stuff we came up with in brief conversations amongst ourselves while manning the booth, some of which include: A board wipe powerup called “Nova”, a rewind powerup called, well, “Rewind” (which allows you to take back a few moves), a powerup that flips a screen on the X axis, called “Flip” (inspired by our really well received “Gravity” Special Mode), and a Special Mode that features special “Axis” blocks that rotate blocks around them like a cog. That’s just some of the new ideas (conveniently enough the ones that just so happen to feature as a part of this new screenshot of my workspace):
It’s not all rainbows and lollipops, though. While we knew some parts of the demo were missing or broken, we didn’t really know how much until it hit the showroom floor. Now, that doesn’t really mean much for the final release, mostly because literally all of the problems in the demo could have been fixed easily; we just didn’t have proper time to test it all the way first. Luckily, most of you didn’t notice anything was wrong, so there’s that!
Here’s a brief list of the problems we didn’t notice until it was too late (mostly because I find it really funny): The “Freeplay” option just didn’t work sometimes, the game would restart your progress after you backed out of the Options menu, nothing in the Stats screen was accurate to what had just been played, and saddest of them all… the Chameleon block animation (shown below) didn’t play! We really liked that animation!
Luckily, we’re taking this post-OGDE time to fix these problems as well as getting more done. We’re even updating animations like this one as well as the particle effects used for the Powered Blocks. We’re also in the process of diving deep into the Versus mode as well! We’re even implementing smaller changes/fixes such as removing the “Freeplay” checkbox (which disabled Timed mode) and replacing it with a “Timer” checkbox so instead of having to turn off the timer, you have to turn it on. It’s the little things, you know?
There’s just so much cool stuff we get to do before the weekly public builds start and with the Kickstarter right around the corner especially, you can bet your butts you’ll be seeing all of it as it comes along!