Had some things keeping me busy like other projects and even annoying IRL stuff, but i updated my game:

https://eyeballtank.itch.io/project-nortubel/devlog/537163/27may2023

• Made the yellow book scene more flexible to create various books with different info.
• Added 3 “tutorial” levels before the preexisting 6 levels, where mechanics/concepts are introduced at a better pace and included respective hint books.

The part above is so people get better ideas of the mechanics.

• Made a first attempt at a cutscene: This is very special because there’s a lot of potential even if the writing, art, timing etc could’ve been better.
• Added a “studio presents” animation before the main menu.

This means if my art and other skills improve, i can give my game a stylish presentation and do a lot with my characters and their settings.

• When entering certain worlds, a stylized name of said world will pop up in the screen (If you look into the Github repo, you can spoil yourself with the other worlds’ names but their actual contexts needs work… unless you find some long thing i wrote that isn’t really kept that secretly).

Getting too ambitious but let's just say the different worlds will give a sort of "crossover" feeling if i end up implementing them right.

What else:

• I might do the Save/Load system later even though all i want to keep in mind is the current level that a save happens and maybe the life count (Something i already had issues with in the past).

And maybe something to do with unlocking features like being able to use a gallery of art or visiting previous levels.

• The “intro” cutscene before the first level also needs actual images, so maybe an update can be focused on new art.

First let me post the update’s notes.

• Added an oxygen system where both characters have a visible bar that decreases the longer they are on water and resets if they leave water; They die instantly if the oxygen reaches 0 (This feature right now is lazily implemented because i just added “oxygen -= 1” in the code without using a Timer node or even a Yield statement so i should improve this some day).
• Life system: Both characters share a life and if one dies, the life goes down.
• Picking up coins adds a new life (Actual number of coins needed and max lives might change).
• Fixed an issue where the game crashes if the Companion touches the Lifeguard floater.
• The Companion can use the floater too and when it’s picked up, both characters are affected (There may be some weird bugs because i tried to fix an issue where if the floater is picked while the Player is getting hurt, their hurtbox would still receive damage).
• Fixed volume sliders being at 0 but not silencing the sounds: Now they’re at 50% which also affects the sounds (Meaning you can see it to 100 just to see how loud it can get); These sliders are still a bit buggy but maybe next time.
• Changed how things disappear (Keys, doors etc) to avoid yield related statements in code.

Now, about the “slideshow” cutscenes

Think of how older games in general had passing images and text boxes that changed, sometimes over time or others with a press of a button.

This part interests me because these story segments will always be different in each “instance”, not just the images or text but specially the number of images/texts used and even how long a certain image/frame/slide etc stays (Because there will always be more text than images and some images are meant to stay for a few extra “frames” while the next changes).

Another part is the actual controls like moving forward/backward as if the Player was flipping a book or the ability to outright skip a cutscene.

Because a lot of YT tutorials will be more about cutscenes using animated characters and i’m not sure if copying GDQuest’s Godot Slides projects is a good model to follow.

Random example but look at Faselei https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-9rELc2eHo&t=62s and just the basic idea of images changing but not as much as the characters’ texts.

Obviously i’ll also need good art for this but a good enough template is a start.

What else:

I hope the next update is about level design revision because of how mechanics are introduced.

I might try to “increase” the levels by splitting parts and seperating them with new areas, so the Player is introduced to mechanics in a better way.

This also means redoing the yellow books by creating more of them with dedicated messages about said mechanics instead of the 3 books i got right now.

With how levels change, i may try some new features like “moving vertical walls/doors” affected by green switches for some gimmicky area or some new type of platforms like disappearing/appearing ones or something that spins.

I also thought of a projectile enemy for the sake of it but a more interesting idea is an enemy that targets the Companion,

Also still haven’t done a save/load system but again: Worried if there’s specific differences between exe and HTML versions to consider.

* Fixed an issue where the Player could automatically jump if leaving the ladder and fall to a close enough floor (Something to do with jump buffering). 

* When the Companion is off-screen, a pointer shows up indicating their direction (It’s a bit awkward but i tried my best).

* Fixed some parts in level 1 so the portals are less accessible.

* Health bars now stay in a stable part of the “UI” even if they’re still nodes under their characters (Used CanvasLayer ones).

* Fixed subtle rotated angles of some levels.

* Added new sounds (Player/Comp landing on floor, pushable, water splash, teleportal effect).

* Finally added localization settings in the menu, so you can switch between English and Portuguese.

* “What’s with the extra button?” i just added a thing for the future: Not just because of code and structure, but also art as things to later worry about.

Off-screen marker/pointer

This is a feature i think would make sense in my game: If the Companion is off-screen, something shows up to point at their direction and if they’re on-screen, said pointer disappears.

Obviously, the problem may rely on the design i choose for the object (An Astrolabe with the base and arrow being seperate sprites) but i just want the Astrolabe to be close enough to the borders of the camera instead of being cropped.

A potential solution (That i don’t know exactly how, since i copied code from a video by GameEndeavor) is to figure out in the code how to calculate some distance from the screen’s margins (Because another problem i want to avoid is if the Astrolabe is only close enough to the left/bottom margins but still passes the right/top margins).

I even tried messing with pivot points of the sprites and using an invisible secret sprite as a father node of the main sprites but this trickery didn’t work either.

Because i reached a point of guessing stuff that i still don’t know how to implement, like using an invisible ColorRect and using it instead of the screen’s margins but i don’t even know if that ColorRect should be AutoLoad or a child node of the Companion.

Here’s the code of the Astrolobe https://github.com/EyeBallTank/PROJECT-NORTUBEL-main-ish/blob/main/src/menusandui/CompPointer.gd and a video and image of it even if Imgur will be useless in the future https://imgur.com/a/Ga2BWRU

Localization

Options between setting the game in English or Portuguese should’ve been considered and i used a video by FinePointCGI on how to do it.

The bad news is that Godot can’t detect the CSV file i’m setting unless it’s UTF 8.

And this is bad news because UTF 8 does not have certain characters used in Portuguese, so the ideal mode should be UTF 16 which somehow Godot is not accepting (Even though it does in the video i used as reference).

EDIT:

Turns out i just had to fix the mixing characters in the UTF 8 version, so now i got localization working.

EDIT 2:

The pointer is now within the camera's boarders (Most of the time) even if it looks off but i tried,

Here's how far i got with Nortubel:

• Fixed Player climbing issue where you suddenly had automatic diagonal movement at times.
• "Tried" making the art less worse but it was mostly removing white backgrounds.
• Added some animations to objects and items.
• Sounds are a thing too.
• Level design changes related to the new camera zoom, preventing some softblocks, some behind-the-scenes collision stuff and the green doors.
• Green doors now need both characters to finish a level (If level 6 is harder, just get the Companion to follow you to the water area).
• Controls are simpler so you press down to do the ball attack (and up to cancel it) and commanding the kids is now with Q + left/right/down instead of S/F/R.
• You even get a speech balloon related to the new command system for the sake of visual feedback.
• The pushable vase can kill the one enemy if it falls on them.

Right now, i'm thinking of another tiny update just to add some reference to the characters' names.

Other than that, i rushed out an update because i'm thinking my PC will force Windows 11 on me.

Anyway, hope more people try my game and hear about it, even if nobody is obligated to spread news (But it'd be very nice).

Also, felt like updating the OC post just in case too lol https://eyeballtank.tumblr.com/post/715159249299406848

It’s like something that should have been considered before.

It’s like a mix of different things at once.

https://i.imgur.com/1Ud2zSw.mp4

One problem might be related to the camera’s zoom because of how it tries to render pixels (As if they keep appearing and disappearing) but they barely change and it’s also because of the art itself (My tilemap is at 64 pixels units and the window size is 1024 x 600).

Least i could try is add thicker lines to some art (Or not thin lines) and try to rearrange art.

I also changed some settings to make this effect less noticeable (But there’s still some weird pixel alignment going on).

On Reddit, someone did offer a lot of suggestions on how to make the art better.

At the very least, this is tied to camera movement so if i were to add “slideshow/comic” type of cutscenes or an art gallery with art (If the art is better this time), maybe this issue isn’t that noticeable.

I also got some gameplay related feedback, so there’s things that maybe i can fix.

After a while, i got proper internet access even if constructions are still going and there’s no point trying to use my phone.

So i tried looking at the very vew comments i got while working on the game without being able to submit changes to Github.

I agree the art is ugly and i’m trying to improve it.

Some sprites now lack white backgrounds while others were redesigned and some got AnimatedSprite nodes instead.

I also did some changes to the Player sprites and endgame image because i forgot some character details.

I suppose the resolution and camera zoom contribute to the weird lines/pixels but it seems the TileMap has these white lines between each square.

I’ll try my best to make the art less bad as possible.

Redoing collisions for level scenes.

Take a look at these scenes in question:

• Water
• Ladder
• IceFloor
• SlowFloor
• Jump through platform
• Fall through platform

I felt like redoing them to make sure they are more modular instead of lazily copypasting a scene with a set size.

The easy part was getting rid of their sprites and make their visuals based on new Tiles.

The hard part was making an export var out of their CollisionShape2D size because all i wanted was a way to make their scales “accurate enough” to the pixel grid.

Then i had a solution: Do not scale the CollisionShape2D but rather the main node instead. Even this part had me checking up specific parts of a scene’s inspector and editor settings just to be sure.

The script in the Ladder scene explains it but as of now, i think i finally found a way to customize sizes for some instanced scenes’ collisions as according to the pixel grid.

Even with “tool” in the scripts, i always have to CTRL + S on the level, then do that to the scene being changed and return to the level just to see the new size (But again, the size becomes almost exactly what i wanted)

Maybe there’s a better method for this but right now, this is what works for me.

Maybe the one missing part here is the EnemyHitbox and i already had some struggles with health/damage related stuff months ago.

Either way, if i’m lucky i could not only update the game on Github but also maybe the game on Itch.

Note that this game is still in development and there will always be problems, so i need feedback and reports.

I also had to rush this out because of IRL stuff meaning that i could be without internet for at least 4 days (Maybe).

https://eyeballtank.itch.io/project-nortubel

Broke a promise but i'm making a game, so you get to know some stuff without having to surf through a large wall of text someday.

https://www.diffchecker.com/j1yc8niO/

And

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QWjE2D9l4qEJQ3rzirwRv3P5pTL15K1Hf8es6vMVG4k

After a while, i might as well make another news post about Project Nortubel just to see what's happened:

Remade Companion

First things first, i had to remake Companion with a new variation called Comp4. This is because of 3 major reasons:

• CCopy used a complicated code that i couldn't easily modify in my favor.
• CCopy specifically used methods that i assumed could be troublesome for future players and hardware.
• The fact that CCopy moves left and right when close to the Player might be odd to some and i couldn't even take advantage of sees_player() from Gonkee's project, but at least Comp4 stops when close enough during FOLLOWME.

It took a while but i eventually managed to fix issues they had.

Companion on ice

The Companion finally has ice physics. Besides the fact that ICERUN/FOLLOW have some build up when direction changes, the fact that ICEIDLE can be slippery (And even so the "idle" part of when they're close enough to the Player during ICEFOLLOW) is also good.

Companion crawl states

First i added a "CrawlCheck", then the "enter/exit Crawlzone" areas, then some code based on touching those areas, then some code related to resizing/positioning the collision shapes and then code related to the commands and movement.

So it's there. The main idea here is having a reason to seperate the characters in some scenarios and trying to make the little bro/sis character a bit more useful in some scenarios.

Slow floors

These floors are kinda like opposites to the ice floors and mainly exist because when i was working on the Pushable object, i tried a method of "it automatically slows down the Player when they touch it" which made me realize i could make this a thing.

Visually, think of it like some really thick and slimey mud (And this feature might as well be rare depending on how annoying it'd be for players).

The first power up (A lifeguard floater)

To make this work, i simply had to learn about set_monitoring because unlike with the Melee attack, i couldn't call the collision of the Area2D with dot disabled = false. But at least it's there.

What it needs is some sort of visual feedback for both during activation and when it's picked up/gone.

Originally it was going to be a green jacket but a lifeguard ring/floater makes more sense with the setting (Plus, depending on potential character sprites, i don't want to make the characters wearing a green jacket when i already thought of 3 Player characters).

So far, it only works on the Player by turning their hurtbox temporarily.

Checkpoint system

A checkpoint is something i always had in mind and when i first implemented i faced a lot of issues in regards to scene instancing and node names.

So i used a tutorial video by matinator9185/MateuSai to make a checkpoint method that "drags" the Player to a specific spot as the respawn spot.

However, this had another issue which was the game crashing if you haven't set a checkpoint prior due to needing a place for the player to respawn to.

So i created a "playerspawn" scene to fix that (And did the same for the Companion).

Even had to tweak the visuals to make sure each character is made invisible, so they seem like they actually disappear and reappear.

Export var behind Door

Now the Door scene that ends levels has an export var, so i can change the next level in the inspector instead of creating specific scripts

Sprites

Still not finished but i implemented various character sprites and even got an export var to select specific characters by levels.

The sprites themselves look weird but at least some mechanical stuff is there.

I also found a way to fix the Player's pushing animation.

Though the placeholder sprite scenes still exist (Are set behind the characters' AnimatedSprite scenes), partially because of comparison stuff and other test related things.

I also had to redo how the Player's melee works because somehow i broke it (Ended up creating a seperate PlayerMelee scene that the Player spawns in the spot of their original hitbox).

Current issues

• The Player's new "Hurt" animation using AnimatedSprite and/or HURT state are messy; One issue i noticed is how the Enemy can still hurt the Player because it takes a while for the "playerhurt" animation to actually play. I want "playerhurt" to start RIGHT when the Player's hurtbox collides with the EnemyHitbox.

I felt like redoing how the Player receieves damage, even if i broke it.

• The current Pause Menu scene isn't AutoLoad/"universal" because it's set as a node under a CanvasLayer node in each level, so i need to make this as an actual recurring game scene.
• The Pause Menu shows up ABOVE the SceneManager's animation but it doesn't pause the animation: Therefore the scene changing animation still plays and changes the scene (And i only didn't make the Pause Menu AutoLoad because i don't know how to make it unavailable in certain scenes like the Main Menu).
• The Companion's AI could improve as it only jumps when it's "under" the player's position (And there's more to consider depending on what will eventually be added to the game).
• Current health bars are attached to the main characters and not part of an ingame HUD attached to the screen.
• Companion shakes during climbing when close enough to the Player, as seen in the AnimatedSprite still retaining the "Climbidle" frame when supposedly moving.
• There may be a subtle bug on Comp4 during "Pushing" animation where it returns to "Running" while on PUSHRUN state i guess.
• Comp4 doesn't have the "updated but still broken" take on getting hurt that the Player has (Part of this is because i want to learn how you make an scene change to a previous state, because i don't know how a script can keep a "previous state" in mind, so the Player's HURT state just changes to MAINSTATE which can be weird if the Player was on CLIMB state).

Other stuff

• Just learned that Gonkee's video on the Jared AI project is gone. Because not only do i borrow code from that project, it's a specific version where unlike the Jared thing, i don't have that "sees player" code used on may game.
• With the checkpoint, i'd like to work on a life system: Ideally, both characters share "lives" despite the health being seperate meaning that if one dies, both characters respawn.
• Another idea i consider is an oxygen system. Maybe make it that the number is 100 by default/outside water but when is_on_water(), it slowly goes down and whether or not it's insta death or health drain depends.
• I need to do something about collision shapes for stuff since i added new sprites for the characters.

I got too ambitious with this game but if i tweak/add enough stuff, i like to think i'm close enough to make a playable demo.

Project as usual is here https://github.com/EyeBallTank/PROJECT-NORTUBEL-main-ish