Games Cataclysm [FINISHED!]

Introducing Cataclysm

Cataclysm is a two-player local versus game that is in a similar vein to Towerfall, Samurai Gunn, Nidhogg, etc., etc.. Each player takes control of a cat, one red and one blue, and after a quick count-down, you and your opponent throw bombs at each other in an attempt to blow each other up while hopping around collecting power-up crates and avoiding stage traps. I'd say that the game has two primary "hooks":

1) Every weapon/attack you use against your opponent can be turned against you (bombs can be swatted back with well-timed melee attacks, remote bombs change from your colour to your opponent's if you die before detonating them, meaning they take control, sticky bombs can be removed by rubbing them off on the other player, and so on).

2) The tile-based stages are almost entirely destructible, meaning that the longer the match goes, the more difficult it becomes to keep yourself from falling into the bottomless pit while also minding the incoming attacks. The cats are quite capable at navigating the terrain thanks to their abilities to wall-jump as well as cling (indefinitely) to any surface-- except for sawblades... Don't try to cling to those.

Where It's At Now

Cataclysm isn't the first game project that I've worked on, but it is the first that I've taken past basic gameplay prototyping. It's been my baby for close to two years, but school has kept me from working on it as much as I'd like (I forced myself to stay out of Unity for these past 5 months for the sake of my grades), so it's been sort of slow-going. And even during the summer when I didn't have as many obligations limiting my time, I've been struggling with trying to decide what the next step is with this game. I've spent an enormous amount of time just playing it with friends, including at my buddy's birthday party where I was very pleased to see it get attention even after I stepped away. So, I like the game, but it's clearly not quite finished. I'm just not sure if I should be focusing on finishing polish or maybe there are bigger issues that only impartial criticism can show me.

As far as artistic skills go, I'm quite good at sculpting, but the little time I spent with 3D modeling software (admittedly, years ago) wasn't really successful. I might give it another go eventually, but I'm more interested in making 2D games anyways. My digital drawing skills are practically non-existent too, unfortunately, so it's been difficult to make the game look presentable. This is what the game looked like until fairly recently:



And here's the simplified, neon sort of look I switched it to:



I think it's an improvement, but the neon look has made it even harder for me to make the game look interesting. I want to add more interesting graphical elements, but most attempts at doing this have only made it difficult to tell what's going on in the game, and I don't believe in sacrificing functionality for aesthetic. This, I think, is where I need the most feedback.

I realize that I'm limiting the likelihood of people actually playing my game by making it exclusively local multiplayer, but hopefully somebody out there has a friend nearby to give it a shot. From what I've seen with my friends, it takes some time to get good, but they're usually playing against me, so it's not really fair.

Thanks for reading, and I'm really looking forward to your responses.

 

Just from reading this WIP about doing a WIP - it sounds like you are
OVER-thinking every move you make in hopes of making every correct decision.

Speaking frankly - Screw that! Just do it. Flip a coin or roll a 1d8 if you have to - to force yourself to make a decision. And stick to it - dont be wishy-washy, own the decision you make regardless or what feedback you get.

Indecisiveness kills productivity, creativity and progress.

It is VERY alright to make a mistake and correct a mistake. It is also OK to make your own decision (posting whatever file type or to whichever site you want to) and stick to your decision. 3D or 2D - You decide! and fortify that decision with reason. I wanted to thats why.
People may give you some feedback that you have already considered and some you have not. Feedback - positive and negative is ALL beneficial to progressing, so - just decide on something and own it.

It also 'kind of' sounds like you are a tiny bit concerned with failing. IMO - if you expect to fail you will be suprised when you dont. Of course work towards not failing as much/hard as you can. But really - if your expectations are $$$ crossy road success over night, much of what an indie experiences will be seen as a failure.
Though you didnt outline what your own personal expectations are for this game - I might be reading a bit into the indecisive post above.

Please post at least a video so we can give feedback on how the game looks and looks like it plays.

 

Thank you. You pretty much nailed it, and I think I needed to hear that.

I definitely don't expect to make a bunch of money off of my first game though. To be honest, I don't really know what realistic expectations are. I follow a lot of developers who make excellent games, but they're still struggling to make a living, so if I can get a few people around here to just try the game out and tell me what they think, I'll be happy.

I'm working on getting an exe available right now. In the meantime, here's a video of my girlfriend and I playing a match:

 

Made a mental note to come back to check this out.
I watched the gameplay video because the games isn't the type of game I'd play normally so it would only be a time waste for me and I don't think I'd provide any constructive feedback on 'actual' design.

imo the game looks feature complete to me. May consider providing some goals to the players before and during gameplay. I couldn't make out who was the winning condition in the video. Is there a score somewhere?
I found the numerous types of attack weapons and powerups interesting. Have you thought about any type of defensive weapons? Shields, catnip?, mouse, water (cats usually dislike water).

imo - the game looked better before the graphics were changed to the neon look, though the purple background is gaudy. The solid bricks and the solid cat assets just seem to read better to me in the first image compared to the second and video.
Personally I think the cats seem to function properly and look good.

imo I think adding anything visually will only increase the difficulty in readability at this point. A general design rule is - if things are larger and fuller (take up more room on screen) they read better, smaller more detailed stuff, and excessive stuff makes the design more difficult to read.
You may consider increasing the size and reducing the detail of all the assets (except the explosion and cat assets in the first image) this could increase the readability of the game and allow you to add a little more content, though I don't think the game needs more content.
After reducing detail of the assets you might attempt to increase the sprite sizes on screen. This will increase the ability to add more detail on important assets if desired. This could also provide incentive to improve/add some interesting animated sprites to the scene.

This is one of those design decisions we spoke about before. I think it's your decision and a good one - stick with it if you think it's the right decision. I'm working on a turn based combat puzzle type game, and I'm designing with only multiplayer, however I've planned to add AI for single player entertainment. Since I'm not a coder - this is a heavy/time consuming design decision, but one I hope improves the overall experience for the players.

Hope this feedback provides some incentive to push towards completing the game.

 

I get that it's not for everybody. Thanks for checking out the video and giving some feedback on that though. The winning condition is pretty straight-forward: You just kill the other player until they're out of lives. The ambiguity, I suppose, comes from the admittedly terrible HUD which shows how many lives each player has remaining. The HUD has been one of those things that I know is bad, but I don't really know what to do with it, and other aspects of the game have always either been more important or more interesting to work on, so it's been kinda neglected. This will have to be addressed before the game is complete.

As for non-offensive power-ups, yes, I've considered several. Actually, "cat nip" and "shield" were two that I briefly played around with, but I quickly realized that they weren't a good fit. It would be nice to have some cat-themed items, but I haven't figured out a good way to do that. At one point, I considered making levels spawn collectable mice or fish that would give you a special power-up or a 1UP after you've gotten 10 or something, but the ever-changing terrain makes stuff like that exceptionally difficult to deal with.

The purple background was pretty ugly, but it was one of the few choices that didn't make several important details difficult to see. And just a quick comment on the style choice: I felt like with the old graphics, the game looked like it needed more details which only harmed readability (thanks for the word ). A lot of indie games use a pixel graphic style, including the ones that inspired Cataclysm (namely, Towerfall), and they generally have a dedicated and/or talented graphics artist. Once I switched to the neon look, the lack of detail looked more deliberate, and the graphics seemed to pop a little more. The challenge is just figuring out how to add graphical details, especially for the more abstract-looking stages that might look weird with grass patches several layers deep...

... But you may be right. One idea was to make a bunch of fossils and other stuff you might find under-ground, which would be revealed gradually as the stage takes damage. I drew one (which took forever) and with a high alpha level, it actually looks pretty good without being visually distracting. However, if there were a bunch of objects like that instead of just one, it might be come a problem.

The sprite sizes are pretty much the only size that they can be at this point. It was a royal pain to get the graphics to display properly, and I think that the smallest size-increase that would be possible would be x2-- which, of course, would prevent the stages from displaying fully.

Thanks again for the feedback.

 

Here's the latest build. The changes are mostly stage design tweeks. Speaking of which, I feel like I should give a little description of each of the currently-included stages. Many have been made, tested, altered, and cut. Most of the ones included are well-liked by other folks who have played. I'll start with the first five:

1. Vanilla

Spoiler: Vanilla img

This stage was developed surprisingly late, considering how obvious it is to make flat, thickly-layered stage when destructibility is one of the main hooks of the game. This one quickly became a favourite for it's simplicity. The large number of destructible tiles means that there's an especially large variability in how games on this stage play out. Also, the two item crates at the top can give you any of the six power-ups, so when the match starts, both players can run for their loot and immediately start hitting with whatever they get.

2. Axolotl

Spoiler: Axolotl img

Axolotl started with two main ideas: I wanted a ceiling area that players could stick to and drop bombs down from. Getting players down with a well-timed bomb throw can be pretty difficult, so I wasn't able to make this stage until I had the (floating) Remote Bombs and the (homing) Ghost Bomb which works as an effective counter-attack. The other thing I wanted was to make a stage where the players start close to each other. I thought it would be fun if both players had the option to go for a crate close to their starting points.

3. Chain Reaction

Spoiler: Chain Reaction img

When I add a new feature, I often make a new stage centered around it. Sometimes it works, and other times I go way overboard and it's terrible. When making "Chain Reaction", a stage framed with bombs that respawn a few seconds after detonating, I knew it would be a tough sell. As expected, people said that it was too hard. But I really l liked it, so I kept adjusting it and encouraging people to play it. And, to my surprise, it's become one of the preferred stages by just about everybody (including my girlfriend who originally hated the stage). Finding the right layout for the centre tiles was the key, but reminding people that they can melee attack the bombs at the bottom (breaking the chain reaction circuit) to save themselves from a sure death also helped, I think.

4. Crush Forts

Spoiler: Crush Forts img

Crush Forts is sort of a relic of the original design for Cataclysm that I briefly had on paper in which the players were never meant to reach each other with anything besides their bombs. And instead of counting on direct attacks, they'd focus on trying to dismantle their opponent's fort, making things fall into the other player while also removing their footing. I tried it out with the early version of this stage and it simply wasn't fun. The addition of the connecting bridges made Crush Forts suitable for the gameplay I ended up going with.

5. Five Stories

Spoiler: Five Stories img

Immediately after making Crush Forts, I wanted to make Five Stories-- a stage that was all about the falling "crush blocks" that I had just added. Unlike Chain Reaction, Five Stories was an instant hit. The abundance of power-up crates is probably a big reason, but I think the crush blocks falling and stacking into different configurations also makes it interesting to play. If you're not careful, it's actually possible to get yourself trapped with no way out (except to die, of course). Normally this is something I wouldn't want to allow, but I think it's both rare and preventable enough that when it does happen, it's more funny than frustrating-- particularly if the other player is able to make the ceiling come down and squish you. Actually, those are my favourite kills.

 

Maybe a creative take on the saying of "cats have 9 lives", maybe every time they die, a ghost cat floats up to fill up one of the life slots. When all life slots are filled for one player - they loose.
This could also play well with the power up idea you had. If they get a 1up a life slot could be unfilled. If they get a shield - maybe it could shield the life slot instead of the actual cat. Even if the cat dies, when the ghost slot floats up to fill in a life slot it would be blocked by the shield. Essentially a 1up but presented in a slightly different way.

Your levels are nice and varied. How many are there, or do you expect to have for the final build?

 

I actually came really close to doing something like that with the cat ghosts, but I decided against it because I thought there might be too much going on with the cat body tumbling around. Maybe I'll try it out though. It would be fun to draw little cat ghosts.

My real issue with the HUD is just figuring out how to show the player's bomb stock and power-up in a way that's actually useful. Currently, I never even look at those parts of the HUD because I'm always aware of what I have, but it seems like that stuff should be visible somewhere. I'm not really sure. Towerfall puts the player's weapon stock above their heads where it's easily visible, but I don't think that would work so well for Cataclysm. Icons and numbers in the play area would probably just get in the way.

The current build has eleven stages. I always pictured there being closer to 20 of them, but I'm finding that creating good stages is really difficult due to the destructible terrain. Though it hasn't ever actually happened in practice, I want all stages to be functional if all of the destructible terrain is gone. Also, It's important that every stage has a unique identity and feel. I have a few more ideas to try out, so realistically, I'd expect maybe twelve in the finished product.

 

Because I'm clearly using GitHub wrong*, I decided to search for another solution for uploading WIP builds of Cataclysm. What I've found is a website called Box, which seems to suit my needs just fine.

*

Spoiler: GitHub troubles

I know that GitHub is meant to be used as a version control tool for a project, but I just haven't been able to wrap my head around it, and every time I try, I run into some weird problem. At this point, I think I'll just wait until my next project before I bother, as I'm too worried about screwing something up.

As far as updates are concerned, I haven't changed anything fundamental with the game, and I don't expect that I will any time soon. I have, however, been going kinda crazy with revamping most of the stages. There are few that I've long considered to be in their final state (aesthetic details aside), but even those ones have gotten a make-over.

The latest feature, a fragile "Glass Block" type, is what I have to thank (and this will be the focus of this update). I started making it just for fun without any real plans for how it would be used, but it's turned out to be quite significant. The dirt and stone blocks have been in the game since the really early days (coloured-rectangles-instead-of-animated-cats early), and they differ in exactly the way you'd expect: Dirt blocks break after taking a little bit of damage, stone blocks break after taking a lot of damage. Glass Blocks, as you'd expect, break after taking an extremely small amount of damage. But what really sets them apart is that they also take impact damage from bombs that are thrown at them. This makes it possible for stages to include more small platforms, specifically ones that are high up.

In Cataclysm, the having the higher ground is critical. Most bombs obey the laws of gravity, after all, so throwing them up at somebody who's throwing bombs down at you is often not a successful strategy. And because bombs are round, they often roll off of small platforms, making it even harder to take somebody down if they're perched above you. I've done several things to counter this:

1) Power-ups are usually lower in a stage. Getting them almost always requires that you leave an advantageous position. Also, several power-ups are really good at taking out players above you.

2) Many walls and some upper platforms have spike traps that when touched, are activated and after a brief warning flash of red and blue, extend deadly spikes to keep anyone from sticking around for too long.

3) I designed stages very carefully to avoid creating areas that could be used cheaply. You may notice a re-occurring tile formation that looks like this:

Spoiler: "Jelly Bowl"

These are meant to catch bombs that are thrown onto them. Originally, they were only made of the purple Unbreakable Blocks, but they were always sort of annoying to navigate. The creation of the green Ghost Blocks (bombs can pass through but players cannot) made the formation much better. They're extremely effective, but they take up a lot of space. They're also entirely indestructible, so they'll stick around throughout the match which is usually not ideal. This had been cramping my stage designs for quite a while.

Glass Blocks allow more small platforms that only give a player the positional advantage until the other player shatters the ground they're standing on simply by delivering a few direct hits:

Spoiler: Glass Platform counter attack

These new blocks have also allowed me to fill out stages a little more in ways that wouldn't have played well with dirt or stone. The reason being, certain areas of a stage shouldn't last long such as walls or platforms that allow you to easily reach high ground. Dirt and Stone blocks just tend to linger for too long if they're in the wrong places. There are also times when designing a stage that I want to encourage it to come apart in a particular way, and Glass Blocks help with that too. Take "Blast Valley" for example:

Spoiler: Blast Valley (old version)

The square gaps are meant to catch bombs so that the stage will tend to blow up the stage in a V-shape. This worked fairly well, but I never liked the empty space, especially at the start of the match: If you want to go for the power-up crate, you have to jump over that little gap. Stuff like that is fine once the stage has taken some damage, but right at the start it feels a little clumsy. Here's the current version:

Spoiler: Blast Valley updated version

The Glass Blocks work nicely for temporarily filling in those gaps. And yes, lots of other changes have been made.

But enough of that. Here's a new build of Cataclysm.

One last thing: I think I (finally) figured out how to handle my HUD problem. I'm pretty excited about it actually, but I'll save that for next time. I can't wait to get rid of those hideous rectangles.

 

Ah, it feels good to have finally gutted (most of) that horrible HUD. All that's left now is the lives counter, but that will be spruced up later. So, how will you know which power-up you have (if you, for some reason, forgot). And what about your regular, "yarn" bombs? They have a cooldown, so how will you know when you can start throwing them again?

It's all in the aimer arrow now.

I've made an effort to associate each power-up with a colour with the only real reason being to make the item crates immediately recognizable. Well, now your aimer arrow will change colour to show you what kind of bomb you'll be throwing next. Now, you won't be able to see how many you have left, but I don't feel this is really a big deal. There are only six power-ups and when you collect a crate, it always contains the same amount of each one (sticky bombs = 2, missiles = 3, remote bombs = 2, blitz bombs = 10, force bombs and ghost bombs = 1). I think it's reasonable that people will pick up on this over time.

Your aimer arrow also shows when your bombs are on cool-down by fading out a little bit.

Check out the changes in the latest build.

 

Update: Colour-Blind Option, Stage Tweaks/Overhauls, and a Developer Name!

Hey all!

Cataclysm is now a little more colour-blind friendly

In my last update, I explained how I compressed the information about your bomb inventory into your aimer arrow using colour to indicate special bomb-type and transparency to indicate that cool-down is in effect. Well, one of my friends was particularly unenthused. He pointed out that this new feature is useless to him as he's (partially) colour-blind. I've known this about as long as I've know him, so the issue had crossed my mind, but I had already made colour such an integral part of the game's visual language that I didn't think it would matter if I just took it a little further. According to him, however, there wasn't really an issue until the colour-changing arrow (which has 7 different colours-- 8 if you count the faded cool-down state). That's just too much variation, he explained.

My (slightly reluctant) solution was to include option icons above the players' heads. I thought that the icons would either be A) So big as they're in the way or B) so small as the letter/symbol displayed would be too difficult to read. I think I've found a pretty happy medium, erring on the side of "too big". Have a look:

​

As I mentioned before, I don't think there should be many times when you don't just implicitly know which special bomb type you have, so this is really just an extra helper in case you're prone to forgetting. When you collect a crate, a text indicator pops up briefly, telling you what you just collected. Another small adjustment I made was increasing the amount of time this text hangs in the air for before disappearing, so you're sure to see it.

Taking a friend's (slightly strange) request

Unfortunately, I don't get to play Cataclysm with a wide variety of people. My girlfriend is fantastic for playing with me pretty much whenever I ask. Recently, I managed to get a visit in with one of my oldest friends who happens to be one of the reasons I'm making games now. We played for quite a while, and one thing that kept bothering him was that he was accidentally collecting special bomb crates that he didn't want. He argues that he's more effective with the default yarn bombs, and he despises the missile. So, to appease him and anybody who might share his frustrations, I made it possible to ditch any special bomb that you have by pressing triangle/Y (Playstation/Xbox, of course). If you do this, you still have to deal with the cool-down that normally follows when you use up your special bomb stock.

I am Moon Jelly!

I've wanted to have a developer (can't really call it a "company" or a "studio", right?) name, but it seemed silly to focus too much on that without even a single game close to completion. With the light at the end of the tunnel glimmering ahead of me with Cataclysm, I decided that maybe it was time. I had a few ideas...

Spoiler: Rejected names

"R.C. Brain": Short for "remote-controlled brain", a reference to my "big" game idea that I'd like to make someday (possibly after Cataclysm). But I decided against this name because 1) I don't think that "R.C." is universally understood to be short for "remote controlled", 2) the game it's referencing doesn't even exist yet, and 3) it doesn't sound good.

"Nucliobrain": Another reference to the same non-existent game. I used to want to call the game that, but time has given me the perspective that this would be a terrible, terrible name.

"Bloodshot Eye": This is the label (with a logo) I put on the comics I made when I was a little kid. I thought it would be a cute story, but realistically, the name sounds like it would fit somebody making something a little more violent/gruesome. I mean, I have other game ideas-- but this just feels limiting. Also, it's taken.

"Axolotl Games": This was one I came up with the night I really started thinking about names. And I loved it. So much so that I was heart-broken to find that somebody is already using it. Such a shame. But what about...

"Happy Axolotl": If you don't know, an Axolotl is an endangered salamander, recognized for its bizarre external neck gills, and its permanent, adorable smile. I can picture an animated splash screen for it and everyth-- nope. It's taken. Gotta step away and have a brain-storm (hot shower).

Spoiler: Why "Moon Jelly"?

I wondered, "Why do I love the names referring to the axolotl so much?". Well, I like how it looks written out, and how it sounds-- although it might be difficult to pronounce for Japanese-speakers. But more importantly, I like that it's a weird animal. I've had many obsessions in life and, like everybody, I've grown out of many of them. Animals (living and extinct) will always be cool though, so maybe that's a theme I should go with.

So, what about squids? Cephalopod? Nah-- too hard to say. Box Jelly? Okay... maybe... Google: "jelly fish species". Those "normal" jellyfish are called "moon jellyfish?" Or "Moon Jellies". Yes, yes, yes-- that totally sounds like the kind of name I wanted.

Moon Jelly Games. And it's not taken. I went to work sketching out how I'd like the text represented, and for most of them, I preferred how "Moon Jelli" (with an 'i') looked, but I found a form with the normal spelling that I quite like. Before long, I came up with my "final" design (I'm open to feedback). I realize that it looks amateur, but I was going for simple and I'm quite happy with it...

​

So that's what you'll see after the Unity splash screen from now on. I couldn't figure out how to get the built-in splash screen thing to work, by the way, so I had to write my own. It works though.

Stage (re)Construction

I've had grievances with even the best stages, but my level-building system is cumbersome at best, so making big changes is something I've avoided. But no more! I want every stage in the final version to be awesome (including the gimmicky ones). There shouldn't be any awkward or frustrating wall-jumps, at least until the stage has been destroyed a bit. And there should be just the right balance of each type of terrain, in the right configuration, with the right spawn-rate of the right special bombs to allow stages to be destroyed to the point where there is significant change from the beginning of the match to the end. If all or most of the destructible tiles are gone too early, it's no good. If there's a bottomless pit that's never exposed, that's no good either. "You can't please everyone" is a saying that's important to keep in mind, but if there's a stage that regularly gets groans, then it probably needs to go.

Click the "spoiler" tag in one of my previous posts to see what the stage "Five Stories" looked like. This was a very well-liked stage as it was, but it always bugged me that the crush blocks often came down in groups because all of them were supported by dirt blocks. In the new version (below) you can see their supports now alternate between dirt and stone. This makes for much more interesting destruction patterns. Additionally, the area at the bottom used to be sort of difficult to get out of (and not in a good way). The new version fixes that too.

Spoiler: "Five Stories" new version

Another stage that got a huge overhaul is this one, "Risky Business". It's probably gone through more forms than any other stage, but this is more-or-less what it looked like for a long time:

Spoiler: "Risky Business" old version

Those big circular saws are obviously where the name comes from. Early versions of this stage looked more like a Super Meat Boy level, and I was very proud of the fact that I could pull off similar death-defying jumps with the controls that I (mostly) programmed. Lots of stages got saws, actually. That was always the intent. But now there's just Risky Business (and one "under construction" stage). As a frantic competitive game, Cataclysm and excessively tricky, hazard-filled platforming just don't mix. But I was really hooked on the idea of having this one part of the level where you'd need to use those kinds of skills to collect the valuable power-ups. What I really struggled with was filling in the rest of the stage. Well, "Vanilla" and "Blast Valley" are probably the best stages, and I think it's because they have the most destructible terrain. I just applied that to Risky Business and made it a lot more solid than it's ever been. Here's what it looks like now:

Spoiler: "Risky Business" new version

I've only been able to play a couple of games on it, but I like it so far.

You'll have to check out the new build to see the other changes (check out the new "Crush Forts"). That's it for now. My next big endeavour is an idea I just had while writing this: "Press Triangle to randomize". If you can't guess what that means, you'll see once I get it working.

 

Update: Remixed Stages Incoming!

I'm aware of tools like Tiled that can be used with Unity, but instead, I've been rolling with my own tilemap-building system. It's cumbersome, I admit, but necessary as far as I know on account of my destructible terrain. I'm sure games like Terraria have a much more elegant way of doing it. If there's a Cataclysm 2 (there won't be), I'll definitely investigate other methods.

So, making "remixed" versions of stages for me meant creating a new tile type, "random_tile", and replacing every dirt/stone/glass block with one of them. When the stage loads, each tile randomly assigns itself to one of the three destructible types. Symmetry is thrown out the window if favour of variance in these remixed stages. Eventually, these stages will not appear on the level select list, but instead you'll have the option to "Press Triangle to Remix" on the screen that appears before a match starts, and the associated remixed stage will be loaded.

For now, only Vanilla Remix exists. I'm only going to do this to the stages which are probably in their final state. This might actually encourage me to stop making adjustments which is probably good because, as we all know, adjustments will continue forever if you let them.

I want to keep updating this thread, but I still haven't had any bites on the game download (as far as I know). If you've read this far and you're not planning on trying out the game, I would even appreciate a quick comment explaining why not. There are lots of WIP threads and I don't play every one I read up on either, so no hard feelings or anything. I'm just eager for feedback.

The new build can be downloaded here.

 

Well, now it's certainly been a while since I've updated this. That's largely thanks to school taking my attention, followed by me dropping out, and then starting an entirely different career path. But enough personal stuff-- my winter vacation has given me time and energy to get back to work, and it feels good. Here's a list and description of what's new/different. Some of these things were added during my brief spikes of motivation over the last few months, but a lot of it was done in the last week.

Starting/Respawning Platforms



It doesn't sound exciting, but this simple change makes a huge difference in how I can design stages. They work like this: At the start of a game, or when you respawn, each player has a starting platform to stand on. Bombs and everything else go right through them. As soon as you step off, they disappear. Also, when you respawn, they disappear from under you after a few seconds.

Spoiler: Why they're a big deal

Prior to their addition, I had to design stages with two rules in mind that I decided were important:
1) As the level is destroyed, each player's spawn point should not be affected-- you shouldn't spawn in the air and be expected to find your footing on the way down.

2) The indestructible platforms that the players spawned on should not be easy to "camp" on. If I used just one or two indestructible blocks, it would be very difficult (in most stages) to kill a player perched on top because bombs tend to roll off. My solution was the "jelly bowl" configuration (described in a post above). It did what I needed it to do (mostly), but it also took up a lot of space and it provided walls that players could walljump off of that I didn't necessarily want them to.

So these things immediately and entirely eliminated both of those design limitations.

Respawn Blocks

Spoiler: Respawn Block gif

These blocks can be blown up like any other destructible block, except after a few seconds, they (try to) respawn. If something is blocking them, they just wait until the space is free. Also, unlike other blocks, you can break these with your melee attack, allow you to dig through certain areas. Kinda neat, right?

Spoiler: Why they're a big deal

Similar to the starting platforms, respawn blocks allowed me to make stages more destructible which is a big deal because I consider that to be the game's primary hook. I decided early on that all stages need to be traverse-able enough when all of the destructible blocks are gone that the players can still get to each other. Previously, that meant that indestructible tiles had to hog up a bunch of extra space. Worse still, I had to find other ways to prevent cheap camping tactics, like placing timed spike traps on a lot of the smaller platforms. The respawn block immediately allowed me to replace all of those unwanted indestructible blocks.

The new stage elements have meant a lot of stage adjustments, so for that reason I've temporarily removed the "remix" feature described in my previous post. They'll be back though.

Match Timer

I feel like the common theme with these updates is "well, duh". So yes, I finally added a timer to keep matches from going too long. Usually matches end in under three minutes, but there are a couple of stages where it becomes harder to get a kill as the terrain is destroyed, and I find that it gets a bit annoying. If the match ends and both players have the same number of lives left, Sudden Death starts (both players respawn with one life). Pretty much what you'd expect. The only thing is I don't have an option to play without the time limit now. A big reasons why is that the menu system I made is terrible to work with (it was a learning experience, at least). I'll probably let players disable it if/when I feel like dealing all of that.

Melee Clash

Along with the array of explosives at your disposal, players can also get a kill with a swipe of their claws. The game gets a bit silly when players find themselves close to each other, madly mashing the attack button while also trying not to get hit themselves. To help separate players, I've made it so that if two players melee attack detection areas collide, the players bounce away from each other.

End Match Screen

I always wanted to display some kind of stats at the end of a match. The easiest thing to track is player deaths (easier than tracking kills), so for a very long time, I had a horrendously ugly screen for this purpose. It was functional, but.... well, just look *shame*.

Spoiler: End match screen (OLD)

Before my recent spike in ambition, I planned on axing the feature altogether. Doing it properly would take more work than it would be worth, I thought. Then I changed my mind. Here's an example of the new version:

Spoiler: End match screen (NEW)

It's still simple, but hopefully the improvement is obvious. I'm sure the pixel art isn't blowing anybody's mind, but I've been seriously lacking confidence in that area, so I'm proud of myself for how it turned out. The icons show what killed each player, and while I recognize that I need a text label to identify that, I couldn't think of what to put exactly. "Cause of death" sounds too dark. "Lives spent" sounds too vague. Maybe somebody here can help me out with that. I'm trying to convince myself to do a "kills" and "self-destructs" icon list, but I'm not sure it would add that much. What I would like to do is make nine cat faces of each respective player's colour that are replaced by the "killed by" icons. They icons already pop in one after another with a bomb blast sound effect. It's kinda cool.

AWARD SYSTEM

You may have noticed the weird labels at the bottom of each panel, and you can probably guess what's going on there. I wanted to do an award system ever since I thought of the stupid cat pun "PAWLESS VICTORY" ("clawless" would also work... maybe I should change it?). But I didn't want to do it on account of this game's most obvious inspiration, Towerfall, already having done it. But then I realized that Smash Bros. had already been doing it for years before that, so who cares, right? I'm sure you can point you dozens of other examples.

I don't really want to explain anywhere in the game what each one means. Most of them are (or will become) obvious anyways. For the sake of this thread, I'll share a few of my favourites:

"CLAWLESS VICTORY!" - won match without any melee kills
"PURRIST" - collected 0 power-up crates
"CATATONIC" - did absolutely nothing the whole match (no input)
"NEKOMANCER" - lots of Ghost Bomb kills
"CHEATER!" - I decided to leave a debug feature in. Play around with the keyboard, and you'll get it.
"SCREW AROUND TOO MUCH" - lots of deaths by sawblades (hopefully somebody gets the reference )

BLOOM

This was easily the easiest new feature to implement. I just followed along with a (somewhat shoddy) YouTube video. It provided a shader script that I don't think it ever actually used, but it did show me the import-able effects, including bloom lighting. I think it really sells the arcade-y, neon look I was going for. For comparison, here's the (boring) old version:

Spoiler: No bloom

And here's how it looks now:

Spoiler: Bloom!

I realize it might be a bit too much for some folks' eyeballs (I played with the settings, and I decided that this is how it looks best), so you can press 'B' to toggle the effect if you like.

MINOR UPDATES

There are many, including stage tweeks. The notable things are:

- Force Bomb: Only explodes when touched by another bomb after it has been "deployed".

- Froggies! The little critters hopping/flying around hopefully give the stages a bit of life, so I'm going to add a few more varieties. The frogs should have been easy, but I had a really hard time getting the animation to work properly. Specifically, the "hopping" frame wouldn't switch to the neutral "landed" frame immediately all the time. They're behaving now, and they're easily my favourite so far.

Spoiler: Frogs gif

Note: The graphics in the gif are kinda messed up for some reason. Check out the video at the bottom (or better yet, try out the game) to see how it's supposed to look.

- Critters are now compatible with (and squash-able by) crush blocks

- Crush blocks are now compatible with stage details (like grass, bushes, etc.)

I'd like to add:
Grasshoppers: using essentially the same code as the frog, only with longer pauses which occasionally goes to a leg-rubbing animation with accompanying chirp sounds.
Butterflies (at least two colour variants): If I can make them land on a still player's tail or nose, I'll be very happy, even though it'll basically never happen during a real match because players move around so much.
Snails: It's going to be tricky to code its movement if its going to go up walls and ceilings as I'd like. If the ground they're on is destroyed (and the snail itself somehow barely escapes the blast), they'll escape into their shells and plop down to the ground (or the abyss).
... And I will very likely add a few more after that.

And I think that's about it for now. So I'll end this with a link to where you can download the game (two game controllers are required to play, but you can use spacebar to activate player 2 when the match starts if you just want to play around and see how it feels).

Download the most recent build of Cataclysm here!

And also a video of my girlfriend and I playing in which I try to make use of the newly-added passageways to the outside of this particular level, only to accidentally blow myself up in the process. Watch the video here.

As always, thanks for reading.

 

I'm hesitant to call the game "done" because I'm sure things will come up here and there that I want to tweak, but there's nothing significant on my "To-Do" list at this point, and no bugs that I'm aware of.

So yes, Cataclysm is done (yay!)

I'll make a post in the "Made With Unity" forum sometime tomorrow (probably). In the meantime, I'll just summarize the last few things I've done.

SCROLLING BACKGROUND

I struggled to come up with a background that was both within my limited drawing abilities while also not hurting the readability of the game. I had starry backgrounds before with a few constellations, but it just wasn't doing it for me. The parallax scrolling background of stars (without constellations) seems to be the simple solution the game needed. It's not going to impress anybody, but it does the job well enough.

"HOW TO PLAY" IMPROVED

This section is mostly unnecessary fluff, but I like reading this kind of stuff in games (like weapon descriptions in the Worms games), and I had fun writing it. Maybe my dumb sense of humour will get a laugh out of somebody out there. I recently replaced the ugly static images in these pages with animated sprites.

STAGES

After countless iterations and more than a few casualties, my stages are in their final states. I just added a brand new stage, "Generator Room", to make it an even dozen stages in total. Well, you could say two dozen as each stage has a "remix" version. Some of these simply swap out the carefully-planned destructible blocks with "random" blocks which become either glass, dirt, or stone when the stage loads. Other remixes have more significant changes. I think the "Strawberry Cake" remix is my favourite.

UNPAUSE BUG FIXED

I'm sure this is a common bug: Upon unpausing a game, the player performs whichever action is mapped to the unpause button. It's one I've been aware of, but neglecting for a long time. It's fixed now.

TITLE SCREEN

I added a little title sequence that leads to the main menu. In keeping with the theme, it's simple but effective. Also, I finally found a free song that I like for the opening. I was originally looking for something more upbeat, but this one works nicely with the pace of the falling cats (you'll see).

SHOCK BLOCK

I swore that I was finished added new gameplay elements, but this idea came to me and it was too simple to pass up. They're blocks you can stand on until they take explosion damage at which point they become electrified and dislodged. They'll float and bounce around, killing anybody who touches them. Because they're small, they don't feel like a nuisance most of the time-- they're just something extra to keep you on your toes. And if you're clever, you can weaponize them by bombing them towards your opponent. They're also affected by Force Bombs, allowing you to do even more neat stuff with them.

And that's it, really. I'm so tired, I'm nearly falling asleep at my keyboard. I hope that some of you will check the game out. It is local multiplayer only, and you'll need two controllers to play. However, if you have only one controller, you can use the spacebar in the match start sequence to make player 2 "ready".

So, thank you and goodnight!

Download Cataclysm Here!