Hello again! Sorry I'm late, I've been keeping myself busy since last update, but not everything in that has involved strictly game development. I tend to hard focus on one thing for a week or so at a time, I hard focused drawing critters for a bit, and this past week I've spent a bit too much time out and about with friends (which is all good to me, my social battery just ain't the best so I've been a little beat.) So, similar to last update, I don't have a whole lot to show BUT I thought I'd show it regardless just to inform anyone that I'm still working on shit.

I ended last update saying that I had the elements I needed in order to make a whole scrappy games worth of levels. This was true, and I started by making a handful of levels to test out, and made my partner playtest them. However, I quickly ran into a bit of a roadblock; I was insanely bored. Level design has never been my forte, and I often find it a pain to get through. It's a bit of a weakness of mine, some of my other games have a few levels that are thrown together haphazardly because I got tired of making levels. Its somethin' I've gotten a bit better at, it's just that I don't find it all that fun.

I made a handful of nice lil levels before taking a break for a minute to do all those things I said before. I won't reveal any of those levels here, since I don't wanna spoil the solutions for any future players. Once the game is finished I'll probably make a final devlog where I go over some specific puzzle designs and how I came up with them. It's taking me quite a bit of effort not to reveal what I've currently done, lol.

A new look for the floor buttons!

I realized I had been focusing on getting the foundation in before doing anything else. For some devs, this works just fine and is preferable. However I've always been more focused on the art side of game dev, and I always have the most fun doin visual polish and making things look pretty. So, I did a little bit, and I've been feeling REJUVINATED and ready to get back to work!!

New lasers! Fun fact: the new laser, laser receiver, and mirror all reuse the background shader from squadaddle!

For a lot of animations, I tend to use separate objects, tweening, shaders, and sprite masking in order to get effects. I prefer this over regular frame by frame animations, since doing it this way provides me a lot more freedom and allows much easier and smoother transitions between certain states. It also works really well for the style I'm going for here, where I want the pieces to look more mechanical. A lot of motion is done just by using linear interpolation [lerp() in godot] or sine waves, sometimes multiple sine waves layered on top of each other.

For example, the spinning motion on the laser emitter. It might just seem like the lines are moving up and then teleporting back, but that wouldn't look correct. It's a spinning disc, which means the lines would visually move less when they're near the visible edge of the disc. To do this, I used 2 sine waves that I could pull the position from.

Crude diagram, I know. The final position is set to the value of the third graph listed here. Doing it this way makes the bar ease at the edges of the disc, but still properly display at the correct position. I could have used a single sine wave, but it would look like the disc is spinning back and forth, rather than in one consistent direction.

I've found it quite fun to make each object have a more mechanical design. Being able to see the physical mechanisms of an object gives them life! It can also help communicate to the player what state an object is in, as well as draw more attention to the important puzzle elements.

A new fan design! May change the colors on this later, but I like the motion.

The fan's spinning is done using sprite stacking, to make the fans look mildly 3D while still being able to rotate. There's no animation here, just rotating objects and a particle effect!

I know that wasn't much, but that's all I have to show for today! Follow me if you wanna stay updated, otherwise just wait for the game to come out! I will probably completely fail to update in a week like my initial goal but whatever. I've been takin' this project slow and I intend on keeping it that way >:]