First off, I decided to cast this post a little broader in terms of the realms it's posted to because of the subject matter, so I hope I'm not unwelcome here, hehe...

Anyway,

I'm guessing if you saw this post from the Touhou or Undertale realms, you know what a bullet-hell is as well as the term "grazing".

If not, here's a quick explanation. If you know all of this, go to the next paragraph. Anyway: In bullet-hell games, there's commonly something known as a "graze" mechanic. Your character's hitbox is actually extremely small compared to the sprite that houses them. That's how many of the most impossible-looking challenges are actually doable. However, if your sprite but not your actual hitbox touches the hitbox of a bullet, you "graze" the bullet, usually giving extra points (or in the context of Deltarune, more TP.)

In old builds of Grapplerun, your speed accumulated as the level went on, only resetting on death. As such, you gained "style" points (which count towards your rank) if your velocity was above a threshold.

But, that's a stupid idea, as levels are usually a minute long and acceleration over such a long time would make the game unplayable. So, I added a speed cap dependent on your difficulty, the main differentiator between difficulties besides lower or higher amounts of checkpoints. But the speed-based point accumulator still stayed because I forgot to remove it... So I wondered: How could I modify this legacy mechanic so it's still useful in modern builds?

I'm sure you can make the connection. Yes. Grapplerun, an autorunner where you swing around corners, has graze scoring now because I thought it would be really cool. Gettin' real snug against a wall nets you points, simple as that.

(Pay attention to the "Points" counter up at the top right!)

Snazzy, right? Yes, yes, this devlog is small, but as I said last post I'm mostly working on smaller incremental adjustments and polishing mechanics.

Also, be sure to check out the other progress updates for Grapplerun if you haven't. there's a lot to get excited for, so I hope you all enjoy what I've shown off!

Goodbye for now!

-Ani