WISHLIST ON STEAM ► s.team/a/2214460 MERCH ► patreon.com/raymondcripps Thank you so much for your patience these past years. As I continue ahead with development, I have found that it is not always the measure of technical skill that counts, but rather the ability to navigate the sum of all games one must play to be an indie game developer. Being a good programmer or level designer is helpful, but matters not if you cannot be decisive. I hope this episode has shed some light on that 'meta' level that this craft demands, and my personal struggles with it. While it took longer than it should have for me to decide on my game's structure, I made that decision knowing I had tried every available alternative. In retrospect, I feel I knew the right way from the beginning but had allowed fear and self-doubt to lead me astray. I hope not to make that mistake again.
i thought to tell you, go check sonic unleashed day levels and the mirror edge games, those look pretty similar to your new goals. i´ve been watching your progress a long time ago, i wish you the best all the way from argentina!!!
I get that it's an artistic choice, but her choppy movement actually hurts my brain I really want to play it when it releases, but I just can with that I'm not asking to change it fully and only make it smooth just give me a toggle in the settings where the animation can be changed.
Quick Idea you don't have to scrap your old levels entirely, you can retool them into open world / hub segments that you use to travel between levels like Sonic adventure 2 or the Lego star wars game. Remove some of the obstacles and open up some of the segments and your essentially set. Players can now practice between levels and enjoy the movement mechanics in a much more casual environment edit : sonic adventure 1 o7
This is a great idea!!! I was going to recommend an idea like this, like a hub area the player can run around in between missions and talk to other characters and practice movement and such (or even test themselves, if they discover a difficult maneuver or jump that they wanna practice). I think one or some of these more open-world areas would be perfect for that!!!
It could also have a PF version of Chao garden, or a couple of visual indicators of collectibles or memorabilia you get throughout the game indicated in different parts of the hub world, or npcs you can talk to and help out in some way, which would reveal more of the story
Honestly, i don't think you should scrap the open-world stages. They could serve as a hub of sorts, a place to calm down a bit after an exhilirating gauntlet of platforming, which are mostly optional to overall progress. This way theres no possibility of them ruining the pace. They could also provide you with a place to organically tell the story of this world, a place where all the characters could catch up to/meet each other. I kinda feel like Project Feline will be in the same niche as Neon White, just without the insufferable visual novel segments. I'm really hyped about PF and really wanna see where the game ends up. Best of luck to you and your team and, most importantly, take your time.
yeah seems like a waste of potential even with the clear goal of the liniar focus, why not mix missions up with different styles of levels, that serve a more narrative purpose and are not timed and more exploration based with these open areas
given this is pre-alpha and they're only just prototyping the dialogue system, we don't yet know how sufferable the story bits will be. Not that I have any reason to think it'd be bad just sayin' :P
The hub levels could go the collectathon route. Something that doesn't gate content to the next proper level for those that are there only for the linear levels, but does give you some basic goal while wandering around the map practicing low-speed movement tech in a casual environment. The main purpose of the collectables would be to help you keep track of your exploration%. If every nook and cranny had a thingy to find, you could know you were there for sure on the next pass through because the location has a transparant thingy there when you check that spot. You could even have a menu button to temporarily reset the level's collectathon or additionally put up a speedrun timer to race through the whole hub as fast as you can. Otherwise it's just a huge empty space that possibly looks neat to look at.
@@elfrangofrito Yeah, me too, it's just that visual novel and fast-paced gameplay don't really go that well with each other lol, i think that's where the problem lies, so for players who don't care about story / dialogue / plot they'd just want to skip it if they only care about the gameplay.
LOOK MA! I'm on TV! ☝ I'm happy to see one of my speedruns officially on the channel, and you chose that one of all runs XD With every update, I get more excited for the eventual release of Project Feline! I really wana get my hands on that Lab level 🥺
I am working on something like that. While the level stuff has been going on, I've been building what I call the 'modular mission framework', which allows me to create mission types with custom rules/objectives and easily make multiple missions using the same environment. The player also gets ranked on these missions. I haven't gotten to showing this in a devlog yet, but I've been working on it during my livestreams. In this stream, created a 'floor-is-lava' mission type in under 3 hours, where the player must reach the goal without touching the floor: ruclips.net/user/live1lKGb-nRi2c.
I am so blown away by the realization you came to for play time. How everything flipped when you realized that finishing a level quickly should actually be rewarded. Really amazing video, thank you for making it.
If you haven't already, take a look at the game Neon White. With the new revelations mentioned in this video you might be able to draw quite a bit of inspiration from Neon White's game play designs as it's stages are meant to be replayed to get faster and faster completion times. There's even secret shortcuts and skips that you discover after multiple runs that net you faster times.
Hot take: Neon White's levels, individually, are shorter than the proposed levels for Project Feline, and Neon White is *still* too long as a game. I really loved the replayability of Neon White's levels, but I couldn't maintain that interest to replay every one of the hundred levels.
@@Maawaa I can understand how Neon White can feel too streched out, especially when certain stages aren't really bangers. But I personally loved going through the entire game, and the quest for getting all aces never felt old to me, especially when the game was constantly throwing new mechanics at me and exploring them from top to bottom.
I would like to add Spark the Electric Jester 3 to the suggestions. It has the "different goals to encourage replaying a level" thing with the medals per level
@@wydx120 I personally think Spark 3 did that quite poorly. The time medals are fine, but the score medals are just boring, slow and repetitive grinding, and they're not challenging to get at all.
You are not alone in this development. Not only do you have your team, you also have the feedback and engagement of the community that you need to pay attention to what works and what does not. Always expand your thoughts out of your own head, don't keep them in all the time or else your view will become skewed.
When you started this series thought the game was essentially going to focused on Sonic-style linear courses that focused on utilizing speed and environment to get to the end as fast as possible, (with maybe some open hub levels connecting them in between.) I'm really happy to hear you're finding your focus again, and I'm super excited to see development go forward!
This new direction in the level design is awesome! Plus, I don't think you have to completely give up on that idea of having different objectives in a level. I think you might just have to look to a different game aside from Tony Hawk for inspiration. For example, the levels in Sonic Adventure 2 have additional missions with a variety of objectives that you can go back to complete after the main story mission. Some of those missions even involve certain key items that you need to find in other levels to complete. Completing more missions also unlocked extra content, like a secret level. I always really liked that. The levels themselves were already really fun to replay solely to get better times, but the additional missions added some fun variety and gave me incentive to explore the levels at different speeds too.
it would be amazing if after finishing the game, a level editor would be unlocked, and players could share levels to a Mario maker-esk system. Even if tools were very basic, or difficult, certainly it would add some major replay ability even for the casual player.
Very happy to see that you re-discovered the vision of your game ^^ your level-designer seems to be a huge help to you and thats awesome Feedback from watching the gameplay shown in the video: Small space dizzyness: Watching the abandoned port gameplay felt claustrophobic and quickly caused me a bit of dizziness ( i am prone to motion sickness generally) but watching the laboratory and other gameplay i felt none of that. I think that with the smaller/denser space there's a lot more looking around and movement in small routes and like you said I don't think Gabi's movement mechanics plays with that well at the moment. The camera being so zoomed in while thats happening maybe contributed to the dizziness for me there. It looks like your camera zoom is linked to the speed and the zoomed out view, having more of the level in view helped a lot for me. Collectables/completionist: I'm not really a completionist type of player, i never wanted to or cared to spend the hours looking for and grabbing every collectable in openworld games like assassins creed for example. I think the collectables being in the linear map are nice, you see all or almost all of them ( if u have a couple specially hidden ones that would be cool in a linear map) but hiding them around the open world hub would motivate me to slow down and look for them all which i think is counter to your gameplay loop/vision/what is fun with Gabi. I feel much better about replaying a short level to get everything (and knowing they are all there and it's my skill being challenged) vs them being all over and i have to go find them (so now its more just a time sink or a wikipedia/youtube guide situation) thats my perspective on those at least. Maybe in the open area instead of throwing them in many places, design specific areas that act as challenge areas that have an obvious goal or some messaging to the player that: hey yes if u do this you will find a collectable, so it's never a question of "where is it?", and more a question of "can u get it?" I really like the enemies mechanic shown at 14:15 (omg i went through the whole video a second time to find this time stamp) Looks like a really cool mechanic that pulls the player toward interacting with the thing and getting rewarded by moving in an interesting way. really awesome. With regard to replayability concept? You could work with your level designer in the later stages of development or even post release to fashion a level editor maybe? possibly link that to the steam workshop. This can create a lot of replay value from the community developing their own levels and players challenging them? There are a few games around that do stuff like this and even have monthly community spotlights, themed challenges etc that drive community retention through the collective/shared experience. Having things that are current and happening can help people stay motivated enthusiastic and rewarded for their time. and leaderboards for competing globally and/or vs friends is cool too. similar to mario level-maker and stuff like that ? am also thinking of rhythm games where people replay a level/song multiple times to set better scores and compete with each other. All points above are just a single data point, me and my 1 person worth of perspective. Use/ don't use, agree/disagree as you want good luck with development ^^
Hey! A good advise from a felow GameDesigner: try segmented gameplay. Describing it with words is kind of difficult, but i will try. Segmented gameplay means some kind of parts that consist of some mechanics, witch you have to complete like a bucket list from Tony Hawk, BUT it does not mean that it needs to be just like a task. So if we look at the big tunnel level in your game and some other lvl's. They are great, cause they have a wave feel, you have to go in some kind of rithm and in a path. And this leads to the core principal in your game: Your map will be good if it has some kind of race the player can complete. Having multiple paths is a great thing! So this leads to a new way for those bulky maps, like in this video. It has some kind of paths, but you can get lost. And here comes segmented gameplay, as soon as you come on first obstacle, you will have a text for what to do next, and a small dinamic bucket list, of some kind of small path. Like rail for 5 seconds, then go 5 wall rides and a big goal it collect all 5 gears. This will help players to know what they are supposed to do, and IF they complete it, you can paint the part in some kind of color or design it somehow, so the player can SEE what he/she is left to complete. This is an easy aproach to this great problem in designing maps for fast games, took me about a month to solve)
9:36 On the issue with how to tie level design with the world I recommend analyzing levels from Titanfall 2, both singleplayer and mutiplayer. Titanfall also focuses on wall running and keeping your momentum up so all enviroments are designed with that in mind. At the same time the art direction is one of the best ones I know and they managed to pull off making the complicated level design feel natural with the enviroment.
I am genuinely so excited for this game. I first found your channel because of this video, and from there I went back and watched through your whole devlog journey. I've been part of a big, ambitious project like this myself, so I can very much relate to some of the fears and tradeoffs you've made over the years. And the realization you made here I think is the key to all of it. You've discovered what you're making, what this game is gonna be. And you've already proven with your years of work that you have the skill, drive, and care to execute it. You're gonna kill it, man.
Hey, going the Neon White route is pretty great. You should absolutely consider speedrunning more throughout your designs and encourage the player to move fast through levels, such as providing bonus / alt stages for finishing quickly.
Yeahh I feel like the game is more about traveling and having fun while discovering new things then grinding to collect things or do something. The game just feels so chill
The way you tackled this and sticking with the original approach you had for the game is very inspiring! Level design decisions are always so exciting to watch! Can’t wait for the next progress update on this
2:15 Why is gameplay the last phase of building your demo? I feel like that should be near the top, no? Shouldn't it be like so: 1) Blocking 2) Gameplay 3) Polish = Meshing & Lighting + Audio (since lighting has to follow meshing, but audio can be done concurrently) My philosophy is that graphics are way over-rated compared to novel and engaging gameplay. Let the triple-A studios spend 99.9% of their budget on rendering reflections in eyes and horses pooping while the Stardew Valleys, Minecrafts, and even table-top games show that you don't need all that BS to provide an amazing gaming experience. It's much more useful for an indie dev to spend 90% of their time making sure their core game-play loop is engaging and all the mechanics are polished as much as possible.
The new levels are looking really nice! The laboratory aesthetic fits Gabby really well. Can't wait to know more about Gabby's backstory. Having played a lot of parkour games from Mirror's Edge to Neon White, I can confidently say that the amount of "content" in a game doesn't correlate with the actual size of the levels. Replayability is much more important. Neon White has a lot of extremely short, minimalistic and linear levels which manages to be extremely replayable with speedrun goals and secrets. Having a similar momentum-based movement system, I think Project Feline can definitely learn from Neon White and lean more towards repeating short levels rather than trying to provide gigantic maps.
Been watching this stuff ever since I first saw you creating Gabby. Really happy to see we are in the good timeline where you realize what you’re doing wrong and are looking to make a great game for the players themselves and the character the game is made for, instead of trying to squish things into goals you made for yourself that don’t align with what really matters. One thing that popped into my head while watching this was how the game might benefit from some Metroidvania type aspects to help with replayability, such as having levels where you want to backtrack to unlock collectibles, permanent powerups, and areas you couldn’t get to previously, and while those things still might help somewhat, it feels like you already came to an understanding of how to keep players playing by knowing what has already kept them playing previously with your early designs in levels. Now, instead I think about how your levels might benefit from trying to give more room for personalization in how the player chooses to complete a level, by not making a single route to the end and giving multiple ways to complete the objective. These are just some things that came to mind while watching this video, and I hope you do well regardless considering all the effort you went through and still stuck through with making the game.
level tooling or small inhouse tools gets often overlooked when making games, but there is so much time to be saved. Especially if you know your vision and have a clear idea of the outcome! Cant wait to play your game, your "new" route seems like the best choice for your game mechanics :D
I've been following your progress for awhile. It's great to see you overcame the Tony Hawks game mechanics trauma. It's also 100% A+ what your level designer did for you. There are a massive amount of time saving tricks for build/level work that people pull out of the hat. I'm see people doing weekend level design builds in Unreal Slackers and it's amazing. Personally, I'd rather have more levels that take less time and be able to complete compared to a massively longer one. Many people will end up having their most favorite levels to play or replay from a game. It gives people more choices in what to do. You can keep your existing already created level work and just add new levels into game play. It's all about people having fun and feeling engaged. Keep up the Excellent work, everything just keeps getting better and better with the game.
As the game is focused on maintaining your momentum, i would advise adding a slide attack that keeps your momentum but has a smaller attack window. That way you can keep the fantastic flow of the gameplay intact. Don't remove the normal attacks though; those would still have their uses. You could also have the damage of the slide scale with your speed, alowing players to speedrun through areas and enemies if they can master your system. You're doing awesome man, keep up the great work!!!
Comgrats to the level dev for making that breakthrough! It's definitely super empowering to have easy-to-use art tools to ensure that you have the freedom to move fast and break things. Even if you're stuck designing levels in blender, the modifiers and geometry nodes are a godsend for automating art pipelines
Ive been following your project since just before the first playable build was released and im loving the direction you are taking the project. Super excited for release
Theres definitely a reason that a lot of game companies will use outdated engines or even develop their own when theres much better alternatives. They've spent years developing competencies sure, but more importantly they have years worth of tools and the amount of work upgrading engines saves is minimal compared to the amount of work that creating or updating their tools will.
I really like those new more open levels, the cliff face idea for the second level is really cool! It'd be really cool to see a large clean energy farm level, with solar panels, wind turbines and maybe some big computer buildings to run across, you could incorporate floating "drone" platforms to jump across and that would allow you to use the wind turbines as obstacles, those same drones could also have solar panels on to make floating walls to run across.
Gotta be one of my favorite videos here. Mostly because how despite your initial desires, you ended up going back to square one, because its what the fans loved about the game. I'm not really interested in the game but I've been enjoying watching the devlogs.
I have a TON of respect for the level of commitment you went through to figure out what was wrong with the level design, to the point you pulled out an old classic to get inspiration. Keep up the great work! (also your editing is great!)
I'm glad it's going in more of a speed game direction, if you're ever feeling lost neon white is one of the most beloved speed indie games. Some levels in neon white are ground down to a matter of seconds and having a grading system for how fast you are really entices players to go faster. Also can always look at surf_ maps as they have an incredible sense of momentum and speed. (though the mechanics in surf maps are way more barebones)
the way I view it this game has the same vibe that people wanted from 3d sonic games for so long, the same thrill of speeding through the classic 2d games in a 3d level that rewards skill with the ability to zoom through the world
Something else you can do with fast, linear levels is have alternate branching paths that eventually realign with one another. If speed is the reward, make falling from the high ground stick you with the slower route. If you want people to play the stages over and over, having a score system where points are rewarded based on how cool your maneuvers are, finding collectibles along the way, or clearing in under a certain amount of time could all be ways of incentivizing players to replay stages. Hell, reward them with unlockables for clearing enough objectives.
you don't know how exited i am after seeing "new video uploaded" also your graphics look like it's made by people who work for actual companies it just feels "official" see what you're looking for that "anime feeling" and for now, i enjoy it alot
You should check out the free-to-play game Warframe, for two reasons. One, it's got mid-mission dialog that I think would be a great point-of-reference for you when developing your story dialog, there's quite a few small implementation lessons you can glean from it. Two, Warframe has a lot of high-momentum gameplay, and capitalizes on it by having short procedural levels that the playerbase runs again and again and again, which sounds an awful lot like where your levels are headed.
Listening through this, I had an idea for a stage. A large, cylindrical stage that wrap around itself multiple times. It would allow for a small stage, some unique mechanics, and also a sense of tension as you progress, not from dying, but from the risk of going back to a previous area, almost like getting over it in a way. There's probably also some great ways you could incorporate Gabby's movement into a level designed that way, and you could definitely add some neat secrets and speed checks, basically making a soft requirement for a certain amount of speed to clear certain gaps. My brain goes to almost like a particle collider for a level like that, but it could be anything really. I just think the idea would be neat
So glad this video came across my feed, it's an excellent example of how playtesting and iteration is critical to making a good, fun game. Very well executed and the game looks super impressive, best of luck!
nice to see you realising whats really important about what you love its not about keeping people around, its about getting them to love your game and make them want to be around
Love your outdoor level mockup! If you're having some trouble figuring out a natural way to skin your "outdoor" level, check out some post apocalyptic scenes from anime with tilting skyscrapers and crumbling ocean highways sprawling across water. This can be leveraged for a bit of environmental storytelling, and cataclysms can diegetically explain the sparser levels. They also explain why other levels are extremely dense, with civilization growing in very concentrated metropolis-sized cities.
Now this, this is a good a good example of what development hell really is. Not just that it is a bad thing, but how it looks, feels, and comes to be (damn that skate board rabbit hole). Its good to hear that there is a way out, simply the fail faster approach, focusing on the players and getting out of your own head. I'll def need to keep this in mind if I ever get around to releasing one of my own projects, being willing to adapt the project as I learn how others see it.
If you need a trick to implement for your own project, write down the words "don't deviate" and hang it up somewhere. I would have saved a lot of time if I hadn't deviated from what was already working at the beginning.
what instantly came to mind when you said speedrunning; trackmania's community maps maps that are built by individuals playing the game for themselves and to share with friends and other over the internet this would ofc be quite the undertaking, but if possible, could be a huge asset for replayability, increasing playtime per player a lot
It's always such an intersting time tuning back into these development updates. This video in particular hit soooooo close to home for me and the project I've been working on. I always get hung up on some aspect or other which grinds my progress to a halt on all of my game projects...no pun intended. I'm determined to see my latest one through which is a first person runner/platformer and found some level designers to work with me so here's to hoping we can finish up production on it in the next month or two!
Man, this is fascinating to watch as you progress from linear levels game developers made in 90s to explorable hubs from games in 00s and then go back as you noticed why first one is better
13:24 You could also always add an air taunt button. It won't add points, but it will make things feel cool when a player does things in between actions. just a cool animation or 3 and done.
Have you considered having some levels structured like graphs with linear segments that interconnect so the player has to go back and forth across each linear segment to get to different parts to complete the level, making the player essentially replay but still in one playthrough (maybe enemies/obstacles/platforms/walls/grindrails could be added or removed to shake things up when the player is traveling back through later in the level)
Here is an idea in case case nobody pitched it yet. You could make some levels reversible in the sense that as soon as the player reaches his goal he then has to go the same route backwards. A good example is going into a facility to get to some secret documents and has soon as you found them, the security system activates. You then have to escape from the same route made more difficult with (more) enemies, lasers or even holes in closed off walls to thread through. Going through a level in reverse can still feel like a new stage and I believe mario kart has an option to drive stages in reverse for this purpose. Also, it will easily double the playtime in a stage with little effort.
i feel like if this game got any kind of trick system maybe it should have one similar to sonic rush and how the ticks can give you a little more upwards boost for ledges or boost meter in general but that's just a idea
It's actually amazing to see you working on your dream project for years. I've watched all of your videos and see most of the process. But I really wonder how you keep on working on it for this long? After some time my project started to feel like a burden for me. I'm working on it unwillingly and development speed slowed down a lot. Can you make a video about this? I think it would help a lot of people.
This game has a lot of similarities in design to one of my favorite games, Cyber Hook. I honestly was grinding one map just to get the best score, and had about 100 attempts at it. Most of the maps are these big open linear maps, but with enough speed you could find ways to skip parts to go even faster. Excited to see how things develop!
I'm really interesting exploring your thought process here. So cool that tools will allow you to create larger momentum-based levels than you have been able to in the past! You got darn lucky with that level designer. :)
I think you need to play Sonic Adventure 2 😀 You can make high-speed levels to give the players a rush, but too much rush is draining and people will look for something calm to play after. You do need to break up the momentum with the slower exploration levels to make people really appreciate the sense of speed you get in the faster levels. Plus there's a sense of skill in speedrunning the exploration levels. Again, see SA2 for how slow is too slow because the random locations for the treasurehunt levels were frustrating as heck and changed the pace drastically.
For both the V-slice Isle Delfino style area and the more Sonic Adventure style linear sections, I think having some sort of "holo-Gabi" performing actions just ahead of Gabi might be good to get players to try mechanics or see that certain routes exist- either automatically or via a 'hint' button, which has a holo-gabi run ahead of the player and perform a recommended route from the player's current and active position at a speed +5 to the player's current so they're always running ahead.
I think this was the right decision. With games like this, players just want to go as fast as possible and speedrun these levels, I spent hours playing Sky Port and trying to get a faster time. With enemies and other obstacles it should be even more fun
Ooh just a thought! If you really want to include some more thinking using levers and stuff, maybe you could have pressure plates that could be activated by wall running or pulled by gabi as she rail grinds. While these buttons don't have to be used, they can be used to open shortcuts, lore areas like an abandoned subway, or have hidden drops. Take great pride team feline! All the best guys!!! ❤❤❤
inspirations from a game like neon white levels are often 1 to 2 mins long but are built and tailored to a way to be played 20-30 times because the game is built around optimizing movements actions and routes due to the timer rewards you get for lower and lower times
From what I can see from the revised version of the levels, it gives me modern sonic vibes, I’d recommend giving those games a look to get some inspiration
when Raymond starts to talk about the labratory level where he invited his friends to play it and also said they completed the level in 4 mins but continued to play the level for 30 mins that made me remind of Trackmania speedruns because they pump hours to get few hundreads of a second to get the world record and trackmania maps are small so yeah that made me reminded me about Trackmania exept it's a platformer
This is extremely relatable. I've been obsessed with playtime and how long my levels should be as well. It's like looking in a mirror, thanks for that ;)
You're an Inspiration man, looking for what your players love and building up on that is something you don't see very often these days. Wish you the best, and take your time with the game until it's ready, we'll play it, don't you worry king! ^^
I'm really happy you've figured out the kind of level design that works for your game. I think I can agree as well. My favorite video games have always been the 3D Sonic games, and though the level design can be linear, at times, figuring out how to complete that linear level in optimal time was and still is incredibly enjoyable to me. A lot of the times people have complained about Sonic, in fact, seem to be whenever the developers try to find some way to extend the playtime of the game by adding stuff to it that the players don't really...want? It's always something along the lines of "the fast linear level part was fun, but the rest feels like padding. Just take the rest out, and let me play the otherwise shorter game." You may not be a speedrunner yourself, but In a way you essentially just speedran several decades of development of Sonic games. It may be annoying to develop long levels that can nevertheless be beaten in under a minute, but ultimately that's just...what the game works best as, and hopefully with the tools you're developing you can minimize the annoyingness of designing those levels. I think the more open kind of level can still work as hub worlds, like what Sonic Adventure does. You can explore the hub whenever you want, but all the big action is in those more linear stages you use the hub world to access. Ironically I just came to that same conclusion about my own game I'm developing, though I'm not nearly as far into it as you are with yours. Good luck with Project Feline dude! I haven't even played these new levels but they already look exciting!
I really liked the idea you mentioned of making multiple routes/somewhat hidden paths to add to the replayability and increase options for the player. That immediately made me think of how when I'm playing through Mario Kart stages for the first time I'll often see an alternative route and think "damn I gotta replay this level to try going that way"!
you could still add a challenge system to encourage players to play the linear levels multiple times. Stuff like "get all the pickups", "complete the level without killing enemies", "reach the objective without touching the floor", or "complete the level in under 1 minute" would really give players the motivation to spend time getting good and experimenting with the mechanics
Take a look at the leaderboards in Splitgate for their race levels. Could give you some inspiration. Or perhaps the leaderboards in any racing game. Ghost images of your best run and other things like that could compliment this direction.
Nice to see this Project grow, as always...Btw...I always tought a "Sonic like and something like that Truck jumping game" would be best for your game... Heck, I beat you can make a endless repeating level with a time limit, where you can exeed it with some pick ups and it would be a blast :3
The first thps had a level called downhill jam, that was one fast downhill track with objectives scattered all around. You couldn't get them all in one pass, but when you reached the bottom of the hill you would just get teleported back to the top. Maybe you should look into level designs that loop back to the start in some way. That way you could populate your levels with thps style objectives while still maintaining the momentum you are looking for.
I like this video for helping share more anecdotal evidence of the importance of game design and the importance of play testing to help guide a game's development to any specific vision and also help minimise development challenges and minimise scope creep. I could vaguely relate because I had some development experience where I often focused on my perceptions of game experience issues that were incorrect. I believe play testing and deeply listening to reactions and feed back will help game designers more easily understand which parts of their game are most enjoyable or which parts are issues that need more focus. I was a newbie game developer where I thought all a game needed to be enjoyable was raw technical skill in building games, but this has never been this simple, because this would mean the best games would be consistently released by the oldest game developers, which doesn't align with the history of games we have seen today. I believe an amazing game experience requires plenty of game design, plenty of play testing, plenty of iterations, and potentially researching other games, and solving all sorts of problems, also being ready to throw away original ideas, good communication through well crafted tutorials, etc, not just developing a specific idea of a game.
I remember watching an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto who said him and Reggie would set up a blank white room with a few boxes exclusively to test Mario's movement. It's the first thing they develop; and the first level they make for every single Mario game. Good on you for focusing on continuing your current movement system. Save the idea of a skater style system for a possible sequel.
Idea, If you want to go down the stage replayability route, You could do something like the earlier sonic games, multiple branching paths with secrets along the way. You cant easily complete everything in a single run, but as you replay, explore, and master the stage, you find and unlock more. Ideas for some common objectives: Complete the stage an A rank time Collect F E L I N E (Letters scattered across the branching paths, requiring backtracking, these are saved between tries of the stage) Complete Special Stage (Hidden somewhere in the stage, and will be a difficult test of your movement skills.)
I understand this struggle all to well. Fist of the Forgotten is also a very momentum focused game, and it's possible to zip past months of work in seconds. Here's hoping we both pull off some successful projects! The world needs more fun, momentum-focused games!
Great devlog, really cool discoveries Raymond. Your conclusions and level design stuff reminded me of the Neon White's levels. They're linear & super short, players finish them in less than a minute. But! They spend hours replaying over & over to shave seconds off. Maybe worth checking out if you haven't yet! Another one are the Spark the Electric Jester series, for its long, sprawling, high speed 3D platforming. The dev there figured out some neat tools & level design principles to allow cranking out long, huge, high speed levels as a solo dev (I think). Maybe worth checking out too.
I always like when games use hub levels to traverse between missions and wish more had them, instead of level selection. You can fill the hub with everything you want and even it can provide lots of playtime, add interaction to it, small little challenges to practice the skills, shops, hidden secrets and sub levels. This can break the repetiteveness and provide gameplay variety. But it does not need to stray away from the main gameplay. For example you can put a skin shop at a rooftop which you have to access by platforming. Maybe even keep the enemies in the stage, like fog of war kind of thing. As one of the comments said "You do need to break up the momentum with the slower exploration levels to make people really appreciate the sense of speed you get in the faster levels."
Bro really made sonic adventure and wondered why it was so fast, heheheh. Your dev log is really fascinating, I've seen it crop up a few times, and I'm SO GLAD you're embracing making a game that's fast paced. For context, some of my favorite games reward efficient and productive movement. Pizza Tower, Sonic Mania, Star Wars Episode I: Racer, those games are all built with one goal for the player: go as fast as you possibly can. I know that for someone on the outside to say "That should've been the obvious route given the mechanics you made" probably isn't great to hear, but it is so damn easy to miss the obvious solutions in pursuit of the ever changing and half baked concept of perfection that often results in "developer brain." Don't think too much about dragging the game out if your character goes fast. Instead think about making going fast more fun! Sonic games give you ranks, Pizza Tower has the combo system that rewards you for keeping your combo rolling, and racer is just an optimizer's dream game. As an onlooker, seeing you come to the conclusion that I'm sure people were expecting was the plan all along is gratifying, and for you I'm sure it's a major relief that you were heading the right way from minute one. Keep going, keep developing, and don't worry if your game is only an hour or two long. Replayability is what you want to focus on with speed games, and it sounds like the direction you're heading in has that in spades! Best of luck to project feline!
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Thank you so much for your patience these past years. As I continue ahead with development, I have found that it is not always the measure of technical skill that counts, but rather the ability to navigate the sum of all games one must play to be an indie game developer. Being a good programmer or level designer is helpful, but matters not if you cannot be decisive. I hope this episode has shed some light on that 'meta' level that this craft demands, and my personal struggles with it. While it took longer than it should have for me to decide on my game's structure, I made that decision knowing I had tried every available alternative. In retrospect, I feel I knew the right way from the beginning but had allowed fear and self-doubt to lead me astray. I hope not to make that mistake again.
Hey man been watching since the start of this project take your time better late then never
i thought to tell you, go check sonic unleashed day levels and the mirror edge games, those look pretty similar to your new goals. i´ve been watching your progress a long time ago, i wish you the best all the way from argentina!!!
Dude, Tony Hawk ... seriously? just look at Jet Set Radio, like wtf are you doing?
I get that it's an artistic choice, but her choppy movement actually hurts my brain I really want to play it when it releases, but I just can with that I'm not asking to change it fully and only make it smooth just give me a toggle in the settings where the animation can be changed.
So to summarize you found out why sonic games are so difficult to make significantly longer while maintaining quality and uniqueness
Quick Idea you don't have to scrap your old levels entirely, you can retool them into open world / hub segments that you use to travel between levels like Sonic adventure 2 or the Lego star wars game. Remove some of the obstacles and open up some of the segments and your essentially set. Players can now practice between levels and enjoy the movement mechanics in a much more casual environment
edit : sonic adventure 1 o7
Oh yeah this sounds like a really cool idea
Love this idea!
Yes this exactly
This is a great idea!!! I was going to recommend an idea like this, like a hub area the player can run around in between missions and talk to other characters and practice movement and such (or even test themselves, if they discover a difficult maneuver or jump that they wanna practice). I think one or some of these more open-world areas would be perfect for that!!!
It could also have a PF version of Chao garden, or a couple of visual indicators of collectibles or memorabilia you get throughout the game indicated in different parts of the hub world, or npcs you can talk to and help out in some way, which would reveal more of the story
Honestly, i don't think you should scrap the open-world stages. They could serve as a hub of sorts, a place to calm down a bit after an exhilirating gauntlet of platforming, which are mostly optional to overall progress. This way theres no possibility of them ruining the pace. They could also provide you with a place to organically tell the story of this world, a place where all the characters could catch up to/meet each other. I kinda feel like Project Feline will be in the same niche as Neon White, just without the insufferable visual novel segments. I'm really hyped about PF and really wanna see where the game ends up. Best of luck to you and your team and, most importantly, take your time.
yeah seems like a waste of potential even with the clear goal of the liniar focus, why not mix missions up with different styles of levels, that serve a more narrative purpose and are not timed and more exploration based with these open areas
given this is pre-alpha and they're only just prototyping the dialogue system, we don't yet know how sufferable the story bits will be. Not that I have any reason to think it'd be bad just sayin' :P
I loved the visual novel segments of Neon White but to each one their own
The hub levels could go the collectathon route. Something that doesn't gate content to the next proper level for those that are there only for the linear levels, but does give you some basic goal while wandering around the map practicing low-speed movement tech in a casual environment.
The main purpose of the collectables would be to help you keep track of your exploration%. If every nook and cranny had a thingy to find, you could know you were there for sure on the next pass through because the location has a transparant thingy there when you check that spot. You could even have a menu button to temporarily reset the level's collectathon or additionally put up a speedrun timer to race through the whole hub as fast as you can.
Otherwise it's just a huge empty space that possibly looks neat to look at.
@@elfrangofrito Yeah, me too, it's just that visual novel and fast-paced gameplay don't really go that well with each other lol, i think that's where the problem lies, so for players who don't care about story / dialogue / plot they'd just want to skip it if they only care about the gameplay.
LOOK MA! I'm on TV! ☝
I'm happy to see one of my speedruns officially on the channel, and you chose that one of all runs XD
With every update, I get more excited for the eventual release of Project Feline! I really wana get my hands on that Lab level 🥺
yuh yuh
biggg pog
get this man an early access build with the lab right now!
I still like the idea of tasks, aside from replaying for a shorter time, why not have different sets of goals that can be achieved in more than 1 run
I am working on something like that. While the level stuff has been going on, I've been building what I call the 'modular mission framework', which allows me to create mission types with custom rules/objectives and easily make multiple missions using the same environment. The player also gets ranked on these missions. I haven't gotten to showing this in a devlog yet, but I've been working on it during my livestreams. In this stream, created a 'floor-is-lava' mission type in under 3 hours, where the player must reach the goal without touching the floor: ruclips.net/user/live1lKGb-nRi2c.
Socre3 for your overall and top speed perhaps?
“threatened to closely monitor your communications”
Australia moment
I am so blown away by the realization you came to for play time. How everything flipped when you realized that finishing a level quickly should actually be rewarded. Really amazing video, thank you for making it.
I'm glad you remembered the reason why we love the game
just because a map isn't that long doesn't mean it's bad
agree, just look at other based movement games that is linear and sometimes shorter. example would be mirror's edge
If you haven't already, take a look at the game Neon White. With the new revelations mentioned in this video you might be able to draw quite a bit of inspiration from Neon White's game play designs as it's stages are meant to be replayed to get faster and faster completion times. There's even secret shortcuts and skips that you discover after multiple runs that net you faster times.
I second this!
Hot take: Neon White's levels, individually, are shorter than the proposed levels for Project Feline, and Neon White is *still* too long as a game. I really loved the replayability of Neon White's levels, but I couldn't maintain that interest to replay every one of the hundred levels.
@@Maawaa I can understand how Neon White can feel too streched out, especially when certain stages aren't really bangers. But I personally loved going through the entire game, and the quest for getting all aces never felt old to me, especially when the game was constantly throwing new mechanics at me and exploring them from top to bottom.
I would like to add Spark the Electric Jester 3 to the suggestions. It has the "different goals to encourage replaying a level" thing with the medals per level
@@wydx120 I personally think Spark 3 did that quite poorly. The time medals are fine, but the score medals are just boring, slow and repetitive grinding, and they're not challenging to get at all.
I feel like it would be cool if gabby would gain momentum when hitting/killing enemies, like that she doesnt completly stop when she faces an ennemy
maybe a precision timing attack to just blow through enemies with speed loss being based on accuracy to keep the skill challenge?
Man discovers he wasn't making a Tony Hawk game, he was making a Sonic game
You are not alone in this development. Not only do you have your team, you also have the feedback and engagement of the community that you need to pay attention to what works and what does not. Always expand your thoughts out of your own head, don't keep them in all the time or else your view will become skewed.
When you started this series thought the game was essentially going to focused on Sonic-style linear courses that focused on utilizing speed and environment to get to the end as fast as possible, (with maybe some open hub levels connecting them in between.) I'm really happy to hear you're finding your focus again, and I'm super excited to see development go forward!
This new direction in the level design is awesome! Plus, I don't think you have to completely give up on that idea of having different objectives in a level. I think you might just have to look to a different game aside from Tony Hawk for inspiration. For example, the levels in Sonic Adventure 2 have additional missions with a variety of objectives that you can go back to complete after the main story mission. Some of those missions even involve certain key items that you need to find in other levels to complete. Completing more missions also unlocked extra content, like a secret level. I always really liked that. The levels themselves were already really fun to replay solely to get better times, but the additional missions added some fun variety and gave me incentive to explore the levels at different speeds too.
it would be amazing if after finishing the game, a level editor would be unlocked, and players could share levels to a Mario maker-esk system. Even if tools were very basic, or difficult, certainly it would add some major replay ability even for the casual player.
Very happy to see that you re-discovered the vision of your game ^^
your level-designer seems to be a huge help to you and thats awesome
Feedback from watching the gameplay shown in the video:
Small space dizzyness:
Watching the abandoned port gameplay felt claustrophobic and quickly caused me a bit of dizziness ( i am prone to motion sickness generally) but watching the laboratory and other gameplay i felt none of that. I think that with the smaller/denser space there's a lot more looking around and movement in small routes and like you said I don't think Gabi's movement mechanics plays with that well at the moment. The camera being so zoomed in while thats happening maybe contributed to the dizziness for me there.
It looks like your camera zoom is linked to the speed and the zoomed out view, having more of the level in view helped a lot for me.
Collectables/completionist:
I'm not really a completionist type of player, i never wanted to or cared to spend the hours looking for and grabbing every collectable in openworld games like assassins creed for example. I think the collectables being in the linear map are nice, you see all or almost all of them ( if u have a couple specially hidden ones that would be cool in a linear map) but hiding them around the open world hub would motivate me to slow down and look for them all which i think is counter to your gameplay loop/vision/what is fun with Gabi.
I feel much better about replaying a short level to get everything (and knowing they are all there and it's my skill being challenged) vs them being all over and i have to go find them (so now its more just a time sink or a wikipedia/youtube guide situation) thats my perspective on those at least.
Maybe in the open area instead of throwing them in many places, design specific areas that act as challenge areas that have an obvious goal or some messaging to the player that: hey yes if u do this you will find a collectable, so it's never a question of "where is it?", and more a question of "can u get it?"
I really like the enemies mechanic shown at 14:15 (omg i went through the whole video a second time to find this time stamp)
Looks like a really cool mechanic that pulls the player toward interacting with the thing and getting rewarded by moving in an interesting way. really awesome.
With regard to replayability concept?
You could work with your level designer in the later stages of development or even post release to fashion a level editor maybe? possibly link that to the steam workshop.
This can create a lot of replay value from the community developing their own levels and players challenging them? There are a few games around that do stuff like this and even have monthly community spotlights, themed challenges etc that drive community retention through the collective/shared experience.
Having things that are current and happening can help people stay motivated enthusiastic and rewarded for their time. and leaderboards for competing globally and/or vs friends is cool too.
similar to mario level-maker and stuff like that ? am also thinking of rhythm games where people replay a level/song multiple times to set better scores and compete with each other.
All points above are just a single data point, me and my 1 person worth of perspective.
Use/ don't use, agree/disagree as you want
good luck with development ^^
Hey!
A good advise from a felow GameDesigner: try segmented gameplay. Describing it with words is kind of difficult, but i will try. Segmented gameplay means some kind of parts that consist of some mechanics, witch you have to complete like a bucket list from Tony Hawk, BUT it does not mean that it needs to be just like a task.
So if we look at the big tunnel level in your game and some other lvl's. They are great, cause they have a wave feel, you have to go in some kind of rithm and in a path. And this leads to the core principal in your game: Your map will be good if it has some kind of race the player can complete. Having multiple paths is a great thing!
So this leads to a new way for those bulky maps, like in this video. It has some kind of paths, but you can get lost. And here comes segmented gameplay, as soon as you come on first obstacle, you will have a text for what to do next, and a small dinamic bucket list, of some kind of small path. Like rail for 5 seconds, then go 5 wall rides and a big goal it collect all 5 gears.
This will help players to know what they are supposed to do, and IF they complete it, you can paint the part in some kind of color or design it somehow, so the player can SEE what he/she is left to complete. This is an easy aproach to this great problem in designing maps for fast games, took me about a month to solve)
Making a creator mode either in the base game or as DLC ala Mario Maker will give it a lot of playtime and be popular among players.
9:36 On the issue with how to tie level design with the world I recommend analyzing levels from Titanfall 2, both singleplayer and mutiplayer. Titanfall also focuses on wall running and keeping your momentum up so all enviroments are designed with that in mind. At the same time the art direction is one of the best ones I know and they managed to pull off making the complicated level design feel natural with the enviroment.
these levels are looking amazing, fantastic progress
I am genuinely so excited for this game. I first found your channel because of this video, and from there I went back and watched through your whole devlog journey. I've been part of a big, ambitious project like this myself, so I can very much relate to some of the fears and tradeoffs you've made over the years. And the realization you made here I think is the key to all of it. You've discovered what you're making, what this game is gonna be. And you've already proven with your years of work that you have the skill, drive, and care to execute it.
You're gonna kill it, man.
Following this since early development and seeing how far it's gotten really feels good tbh!
Hey, going the Neon White route is pretty great. You should absolutely consider speedrunning more throughout your designs and encourage the player to move fast through levels, such as providing bonus / alt stages for finishing quickly.
Yeahh I feel like the game is more about traveling and having fun while discovering new things then grinding to collect things or do something. The game just feels so chill
by this ,this game become favorite of speed runner community
Breaking down this process has been really insightful, speaking about what makes a challenge, etc. Great dev log
The way you tackled this and sticking with the original approach you had for the game is very inspiring! Level design decisions are always so exciting to watch! Can’t wait for the next progress update on this
2:15 Why is gameplay the last phase of building your demo? I feel like that should be near the top, no? Shouldn't it be like so:
1) Blocking 2) Gameplay 3) Polish = Meshing & Lighting + Audio (since lighting has to follow meshing, but audio can be done concurrently)
My philosophy is that graphics are way over-rated compared to novel and engaging gameplay. Let the triple-A studios spend 99.9% of their budget on rendering reflections in eyes and horses pooping while the Stardew Valleys, Minecrafts, and even table-top games show that you don't need all that BS to provide an amazing gaming experience. It's much more useful for an indie dev to spend 90% of their time making sure their core game-play loop is engaging and all the mechanics are polished as much as possible.
The new levels are looking really nice! The laboratory aesthetic fits Gabby really well. Can't wait to know more about Gabby's backstory.
Having played a lot of parkour games from Mirror's Edge to Neon White, I can confidently say that the amount of "content" in a game doesn't correlate with the actual size of the levels. Replayability is much more important. Neon White has a lot of extremely short, minimalistic and linear levels which manages to be extremely replayable with speedrun goals and secrets. Having a similar momentum-based movement system, I think Project Feline can definitely learn from Neon White and lean more towards repeating short levels rather than trying to provide gigantic maps.
This game is like trackmania, but with a speedy catgirl
Been watching this stuff ever since I first saw you creating Gabby. Really happy to see we are in the good timeline where you realize what you’re doing wrong and are looking to make a great game for the players themselves and the character the game is made for, instead of trying to squish things into goals you made for yourself that don’t align with what really matters.
One thing that popped into my head while watching this was how the game might benefit from some Metroidvania type aspects to help with replayability, such as having levels where you want to backtrack to unlock collectibles, permanent powerups, and areas you couldn’t get to previously, and while those things still might help somewhat, it feels like you already came to an understanding of how to keep players playing by knowing what has already kept them playing previously with your early designs in levels.
Now, instead I think about how your levels might benefit from trying to give more room for personalization in how the player chooses to complete a level, by not making a single route to the end and giving multiple ways to complete the objective. These are just some things that came to mind while watching this video, and I hope you do well regardless considering all the effort you went through and still stuck through with making the game.
level tooling or small inhouse tools gets often overlooked when making games, but there is so much time to be saved. Especially if you know your vision and have a clear idea of the outcome! Cant wait to play your game, your "new" route seems like the best choice for your game mechanics :D
The process you're making with the game is really inspiring ngl
I've been following your progress for awhile. It's great to see you overcame the Tony Hawks game mechanics trauma. It's also 100% A+ what your level designer did for you. There are a massive amount of time saving tricks for build/level work that people pull out of the hat. I'm see people doing weekend level design builds in Unreal Slackers and it's amazing. Personally, I'd rather have more levels that take less time and be able to complete compared to a massively longer one.
Many people will end up having their most favorite levels to play or replay from a game. It gives people more choices in what to do. You can keep your existing already created level work and just add new levels into game play. It's all about people having fun and feeling engaged. Keep up the Excellent work, everything just keeps getting better and better with the game.
As the game is focused on maintaining your momentum, i would advise adding a slide attack that keeps your momentum but has a smaller attack window. That way you can keep the fantastic flow of the gameplay intact. Don't remove the normal attacks though; those would still have their uses. You could also have the damage of the slide scale with your speed, alowing players to speedrun through areas and enemies if they can master your system. You're doing awesome man, keep up the great work!!!
Comgrats to the level dev for making that breakthrough! It's definitely super empowering to have easy-to-use art tools to ensure that you have the freedom to move fast and break things. Even if you're stuck designing levels in blender, the modifiers and geometry nodes are a godsend for automating art pipelines
Ive been following your project since just before the first playable build was released and im loving the direction you are taking the project. Super excited for release
Theres definitely a reason that a lot of game companies will use outdated engines or even develop their own when theres much better alternatives. They've spent years developing competencies sure, but more importantly they have years worth of tools and the amount of work upgrading engines saves is minimal compared to the amount of work that creating or updating their tools will.
I really like those new more open levels, the cliff face idea for the second level is really cool! It'd be really cool to see a large clean energy farm level, with solar panels, wind turbines and maybe some big computer buildings to run across, you could incorporate floating "drone" platforms to jump across and that would allow you to use the wind turbines as obstacles, those same drones could also have solar panels on to make floating walls to run across.
Gotta be one of my favorite videos here. Mostly because how despite your initial desires, you ended up going back to square one, because its what the fans loved about the game. I'm not really interested in the game but I've been enjoying watching the devlogs.
I have a TON of respect for the level of commitment you went through to figure out what was wrong with the level design, to the point you pulled out an old classic to get inspiration. Keep up the great work! (also your editing is great!)
I'm glad it's going in more of a speed game direction, if you're ever feeling lost neon white is one of the most beloved speed indie games.
Some levels in neon white are ground down to a matter of seconds and having a grading system for how fast you are really entices players to go faster.
Also can always look at surf_ maps as they have an incredible sense of momentum and speed. (though the mechanics in surf maps are way more barebones)
wow, it’s been so long since i watched the devlogs for this game, cant believe how far it’s come
YOOOO THERE IT ISS!!! MAH FANART :DDD
im really happy with the new (i think) direction, i hope that we get a updated demo sometime before release.
the way I view it this game has the same vibe that people wanted from 3d sonic games for so long, the same thrill of speeding through the classic 2d games in a 3d level that rewards skill with the ability to zoom through the world
Something else you can do with fast, linear levels is have alternate branching paths that eventually realign with one another. If speed is the reward, make falling from the high ground stick you with the slower route. If you want people to play the stages over and over, having a score system where points are rewarded based on how cool your maneuvers are, finding collectibles along the way, or clearing in under a certain amount of time could all be ways of incentivizing players to replay stages. Hell, reward them with unlockables for clearing enough objectives.
you don't know how exited i am after seeing "new video uploaded"
also your graphics look like it's made by people who work for actual companies
it just feels "official" see what you're looking for that "anime feeling" and
for now, i enjoy it alot
You should check out the free-to-play game Warframe, for two reasons.
One, it's got mid-mission dialog that I think would be a great point-of-reference for you when developing your story dialog, there's quite a few small implementation lessons you can glean from it.
Two, Warframe has a lot of high-momentum gameplay, and capitalizes on it by having short procedural levels that the playerbase runs again and again and again, which sounds an awful lot like where your levels are headed.
Listening through this, I had an idea for a stage. A large, cylindrical stage that wrap around itself multiple times. It would allow for a small stage, some unique mechanics, and also a sense of tension as you progress, not from dying, but from the risk of going back to a previous area, almost like getting over it in a way. There's probably also some great ways you could incorporate Gabby's movement into a level designed that way, and you could definitely add some neat secrets and speed checks, basically making a soft requirement for a certain amount of speed to clear certain gaps. My brain goes to almost like a particle collider for a level like that, but it could be anything really. I just think the idea would be neat
So glad this video came across my feed, it's an excellent example of how playtesting and iteration is critical to making a good, fun game. Very well executed and the game looks super impressive, best of luck!
Nice, as someone that wants to speedrun the game, i'm happy it is going back to shorter linear levels.
Can't wait for when it releases on steam.
nice to see you realising whats really important about what you love
its not about keeping people around, its about getting them to love your game and make them want to be around
Love your outdoor level mockup! If you're having some trouble figuring out a natural way to skin your "outdoor" level, check out some post apocalyptic scenes from anime with tilting skyscrapers and crumbling ocean highways sprawling across water. This can be leveraged for a bit of environmental storytelling, and cataclysms can diegetically explain the sparser levels. They also explain why other levels are extremely dense, with civilization growing in very concentrated metropolis-sized cities.
Now this, this is a good a good example of what development hell really is. Not just that it is a bad thing, but how it looks, feels, and comes to be (damn that skate board rabbit hole). Its good to hear that there is a way out, simply the fail faster approach, focusing on the players and getting out of your own head. I'll def need to keep this in mind if I ever get around to releasing one of my own projects, being willing to adapt the project as I learn how others see it.
If you need a trick to implement for your own project, write down the words "don't deviate" and hang it up somewhere. I would have saved a lot of time if I hadn't deviated from what was already working at the beginning.
what instantly came to mind when you said speedrunning; trackmania's community maps
maps that are built by individuals playing the game for themselves and to share with friends and other over the internet
this would ofc be quite the undertaking, but if possible, could be a huge asset for replayability, increasing playtime per player a lot
what Neon White taught me is that even super short levels paired with a timer will make me replay the level over and over to get a better time
I just got done watching the devlog playlist.. thank you for this treat!!
It's always such an intersting time tuning back into these development updates. This video in particular hit soooooo close to home for me and the project I've been working on. I always get hung up on some aspect or other which grinds my progress to a halt on all of my game projects...no pun intended. I'm determined to see my latest one through which is a first person runner/platformer and found some level designers to work with me so here's to hoping we can finish up production on it in the next month or two!
Man, this is fascinating to watch as you progress from linear levels game developers made in 90s to explorable hubs from games in 00s and then go back as you noticed why first one is better
13:24 You could also always add an air taunt button. It won't add points, but it will make things feel cool when a player does things in between actions. just a cool animation or 3 and done.
Have you considered having some levels structured like graphs with linear segments that interconnect so the player has to go back and forth across each linear segment to get to different parts to complete the level, making the player essentially replay but still in one playthrough (maybe enemies/obstacles/platforms/walls/grindrails could be added or removed to shake things up when the player is traveling back through later in the level)
Here is an idea in case case nobody pitched it yet. You could make some levels reversible in the sense that as soon as the player reaches his goal he then has to go the same route backwards. A good example is going into a facility to get to some secret documents and has soon as you found them, the security system activates. You then have to escape from the same route made more difficult with (more) enemies, lasers or even holes in closed off walls to thread through.
Going through a level in reverse can still feel like a new stage and I believe mario kart has an option to drive stages in reverse for this purpose. Also, it will easily double the playtime in a stage with little effort.
i feel like if this game got any kind of trick system maybe it should have one similar to sonic rush and how the ticks can give you a little more upwards boost for ledges or boost meter in general but that's just a idea
It's actually amazing to see you working on your dream project for years. I've watched all of your videos and see most of the process. But I really wonder how you keep on working on it for this long? After some time my project started to feel like a burden for me. I'm working on it unwillingly and development speed slowed down a lot. Can you make a video about this? I think it would help a lot of people.
Sure, here you go! ruclips.net/video/kR7d-BShQms/видео.html
This game has a lot of similarities in design to one of my favorite games, Cyber Hook. I honestly was grinding one map just to get the best score, and had about 100 attempts at it. Most of the maps are these big open linear maps, but with enough speed you could find ways to skip parts to go even faster. Excited to see how things develop!
HES BACKKKKK
also great progress! it kinda interesting to see that you ran across the same problem sonic team had when making boost stages for sonic
Great video. It's cool to see how you've explored all the ideas and landed on the best for your game.
I'm really interesting exploring your thought process here. So cool that tools will allow you to create larger momentum-based levels than you have been able to in the past! You got darn lucky with that level designer. :)
I think you need to play Sonic Adventure 2 😀
You can make high-speed levels to give the players a rush, but too much rush is draining and people will look for something calm to play after. You do need to break up the momentum with the slower exploration levels to make people really appreciate the sense of speed you get in the faster levels.
Plus there's a sense of skill in speedrunning the exploration levels. Again, see SA2 for how slow is too slow because the random locations for the treasurehunt levels were frustrating as heck and changed the pace drastically.
For both the V-slice Isle Delfino style area and the more Sonic Adventure style linear sections, I think having some sort of "holo-Gabi" performing actions just ahead of Gabi might be good to get players to try mechanics or see that certain routes exist- either automatically or via a 'hint' button, which has a holo-gabi run ahead of the player and perform a recommended route from the player's current and active position at a speed +5 to the player's current so they're always running ahead.
I think this was the right decision. With games like this, players just want to go as fast as possible and speedrun these levels, I spent hours playing Sky Port and trying to get a faster time. With enemies and other obstacles it should be even more fun
Ooh just a thought! If you really want to include some more thinking using levers and stuff, maybe you could have pressure plates that could be activated by wall running or pulled by gabi as she rail grinds. While these buttons don't have to be used, they can be used to open shortcuts, lore areas like an abandoned subway, or have hidden drops. Take great pride team feline! All the best guys!!! ❤❤❤
inspirations from a game like neon white levels are often 1 to 2 mins long but are built and tailored to a way to be played 20-30 times because the game is built around optimizing movements actions and routes due to the timer rewards you get for lower and lower times
From what I can see from the revised version of the levels, it gives me modern sonic vibes, I’d recommend giving those games a look to get some inspiration
when Raymond starts to talk about the labratory level where he invited his friends to play it and also said they completed the level in 4 mins but continued to play the level for 30 mins that made me remind of Trackmania speedruns because they pump hours to get few hundreads of a second to get the world record and trackmania maps are small so yeah that made me reminded me about Trackmania exept it's a platformer
Short linear levels was always the way. Praised be the corridor, and may the lord bring you many replays of the two minute stage
This is extremely relatable. I've been obsessed with playtime and how long my levels should be as well. It's like looking in a mirror, thanks for that ;)
Yea, Project Feline seemed from your first description like the game ment for speedruns, so am happy you reevaliuates it on that axis.
This is so amazing! I'm glad I discovered your channel!
You're an Inspiration man, looking for what your players love and building up on that is something you don't see very often these days. Wish you the best, and take your time with the game until it's ready, we'll play it, don't you worry king! ^^
I'm really happy you've figured out the kind of level design that works for your game. I think I can agree as well. My favorite video games have always been the 3D Sonic games, and though the level design can be linear, at times, figuring out how to complete that linear level in optimal time was and still is incredibly enjoyable to me.
A lot of the times people have complained about Sonic, in fact, seem to be whenever the developers try to find some way to extend the playtime of the game by adding stuff to it that the players don't really...want? It's always something along the lines of "the fast linear level part was fun, but the rest feels like padding. Just take the rest out, and let me play the otherwise shorter game."
You may not be a speedrunner yourself, but In a way you essentially just speedran several decades of development of Sonic games. It may be annoying to develop long levels that can nevertheless be beaten in under a minute, but ultimately that's just...what the game works best as, and hopefully with the tools you're developing you can minimize the annoyingness of designing those levels.
I think the more open kind of level can still work as hub worlds, like what Sonic Adventure does. You can explore the hub whenever you want, but all the big action is in those more linear stages you use the hub world to access. Ironically I just came to that same conclusion about my own game I'm developing, though I'm not nearly as far into it as you are with yours.
Good luck with Project Feline dude! I haven't even played these new levels but they already look exciting!
I really liked the idea you mentioned of making multiple routes/somewhat hidden paths to add to the replayability and increase options for the player. That immediately made me think of how when I'm playing through Mario Kart stages for the first time I'll often see an alternative route and think "damn I gotta replay this level to try going that way"!
Woo! Way to progress! Keep at it, you doing a good job!
Great take on the modifying mechanics, its always so tempting to go ahead and rewrite whole designs and mechanics from start.
you could still add a challenge system to encourage players to play the linear levels multiple times. Stuff like "get all the pickups", "complete the level without killing enemies", "reach the objective without touching the floor", or "complete the level in under 1 minute" would really give players the motivation to spend time getting good and experimenting with the mechanics
Glad I stumbled upon this during my late night insomnia adventures. Looks really cool!
You're so good at telling your story, wow, kinda jealous to be honest. Hopefully, that will shine through in your game as well.
Great Devlog. I think you came to the right conclusion about your game direction! Good luck in finishing your game!
Take a look at the leaderboards in Splitgate for their race levels. Could give you some inspiration. Or perhaps the leaderboards in any racing game. Ghost images of your best run and other things like that could compliment this direction.
Nice to see this Project grow, as always...Btw...I always tought a "Sonic like and something like that Truck jumping game" would be best for your game...
Heck, I beat you can make a endless repeating level with a time limit, where you can exeed it with some pick ups and it would be a blast :3
The first thps had a level called downhill jam, that was one fast downhill track with objectives scattered all around. You couldn't get them all in one pass, but when you reached the bottom of the hill you would just get teleported back to the top. Maybe you should look into level designs that loop back to the start in some way. That way you could populate your levels with thps style objectives while still maintaining the momentum you are looking for.
I like this video for helping share more anecdotal evidence of the importance of game design and the importance of play testing to help guide a game's development to any specific vision and also help minimise development challenges and minimise scope creep.
I could vaguely relate because I had some development experience where I often focused on my perceptions of game experience issues that were incorrect.
I believe play testing and deeply listening to reactions and feed back will help game designers more easily understand which parts of their game are most enjoyable or which parts are issues that need more focus.
I was a newbie game developer where I thought all a game needed to be enjoyable was raw technical skill in building games, but this has never been this simple, because this would mean the best games would be consistently released by the oldest game developers, which doesn't align with the history of games we have seen today.
I believe an amazing game experience requires plenty of game design, plenty of play testing, plenty of iterations, and potentially researching other games, and solving all sorts of problems, also being ready to throw away original ideas, good communication through well crafted tutorials, etc, not just developing a specific idea of a game.
I remember watching an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto who said him and Reggie would set up a blank white room with a few boxes exclusively to test Mario's movement. It's the first thing they develop; and the first level they make for every single Mario game.
Good on you for focusing on continuing your current movement system. Save the idea of a skater style system for a possible sequel.
Haven't been following this series for a while but holy it looks so good now
Idea, If you want to go down the stage replayability route, You could do something like the earlier sonic games, multiple branching paths with secrets along the way. You cant easily complete everything in a single run, but as you replay, explore, and master the stage, you find and unlock more.
Ideas for some common objectives:
Complete the stage an A rank time
Collect F E L I N E (Letters scattered across the branching paths, requiring backtracking, these are saved between tries of the stage)
Complete Special Stage (Hidden somewhere in the stage, and will be a difficult test of your movement skills.)
I understand this struggle all to well. Fist of the Forgotten is also a very momentum focused game, and it's possible to zip past months of work in seconds. Here's hoping we both pull off some successful projects! The world needs more fun, momentum-focused games!
Great devlog, really cool discoveries Raymond. Your conclusions and level design stuff reminded me of the Neon White's levels.
They're linear & super short, players finish them in less than a minute. But! They spend hours replaying over & over to shave seconds off. Maybe worth checking out if you haven't yet!
Another one are the Spark the Electric Jester series, for its long, sprawling, high speed 3D platforming. The dev there figured out some neat tools & level design principles to allow cranking out long, huge, high speed levels as a solo dev (I think). Maybe worth checking out too.
im liking the direction this game is going, its as if were witnessing its character building in real time
I always like when games use hub levels to traverse between missions and wish more had them, instead of level selection. You can fill the hub with everything you want and even it can provide lots of playtime, add interaction to it, small little challenges to practice the skills, shops, hidden secrets and sub levels. This can break the repetiteveness and provide gameplay variety. But it does not need to stray away from the main gameplay. For example you can put a skin shop at a rooftop which you have to access by platforming. Maybe even keep the enemies in the stage, like fog of war kind of thing. As one of the comments said "You do need to break up the momentum with the slower exploration levels to make people really appreciate the sense of speed you get in the faster levels."
Bro really made sonic adventure and wondered why it was so fast, heheheh. Your dev log is really fascinating, I've seen it crop up a few times, and I'm SO GLAD you're embracing making a game that's fast paced.
For context, some of my favorite games reward efficient and productive movement. Pizza Tower, Sonic Mania, Star Wars Episode I: Racer, those games are all built with one goal for the player: go as fast as you possibly can. I know that for someone on the outside to say "That should've been the obvious route given the mechanics you made" probably isn't great to hear, but it is so damn easy to miss the obvious solutions in pursuit of the ever changing and half baked concept of perfection that often results in "developer brain." Don't think too much about dragging the game out if your character goes fast. Instead think about making going fast more fun! Sonic games give you ranks, Pizza Tower has the combo system that rewards you for keeping your combo rolling, and racer is just an optimizer's dream game.
As an onlooker, seeing you come to the conclusion that I'm sure people were expecting was the plan all along is gratifying, and for you I'm sure it's a major relief that you were heading the right way from minute one. Keep going, keep developing, and don't worry if your game is only an hour or two long. Replayability is what you want to focus on with speed games, and it sounds like the direction you're heading in has that in spades!
Best of luck to project feline!
You're an inspiration man. Keep pushing forward. Never give up.