Hey.
See, I told you these devlogs would be a recurring thing this time! I'm actually getting things DONE for once!
Anyways, Welcome! This is the the 2nd(technically 3rd) devlog for Super Boiboi 2, a platformer that i'm currently working on. (read last log here)
It's only been a month since the last devlog, so I haven't done as much as I did for the previous one, so going forward these should get shorter. Although I still have stuff to show off this month, so let's get to that!
Level 2
To the surprise of absolutely nobody....
I was originally going to keep this level a secret indefinitely, as at the time of the last devlog I had JUST started work on it and thus had nothing to show... but now that it's more complete I have something to actually talk about.
Introducing level 2: Quartz Cavern!
If you haven't figured out by the name yet, this one's a cave level that with a huge emphasize on....Quartz. As you can see from the above screenshot, I haven't started tiling yet, so you're just seeing the bare level geometry.
This level is unique from the first one in that it has a level specific mechanic that isn't used anywhere. You see, in each room there are multiple crystals of the same color dotted around the place that correspond to a door. If you interact with one of the crystals, it will begin to glow. When all the the crystal of the same color are glowing, then the door for that color will open.
It's pretty simple on the surface, but as the level progresses the placement of the crystals gets more complex, as well as multiple crystals of different colors being thrown into the mix.
I partially got the idea for this from another Turbowarp game, that being "Blind" by @/maccawtpi. Though this idea has just been floating around in my head for quite a while.
There's also falling platforms, which are about what you'd expect. If you stay on them for too long then they'll start to fall.
There's a playable section for Spike, one of the other playable characters. Since the last level was pretty much just a tutorial for them, I wanted to have more sections designated for each character and their abilities, and Spike just seem like a good fit. I was originally going to have it split between Spike and Leggs, but that character seems to have fucked up animation code or something, so I scrapped her part.
And that's all I got for level 2. Just like it's predecessor it's simple, but this time there's new mechanics and less hand-holdy level design. It's been real nice to see everything come together so quickly.
Of course, that isn't all I've been working on. I've also spent a pretty big chunk of the past month reforming code to make things more efficient and annotating previous and new scripts so I can keep things more organized.
Like, for example, I completely redid the system for jumping on enemies. You'd think it would be pretty straight forward for something as simple as "jump on enemy, enemy dies", but the old script was an ugly piece of garbage that I made right at the beginning of development, so it didn't work half of the time and needed a glow up. I also worked on improving the camera a bit.
The most important thing I did, though, was creating new enemies for the first time with the brand new system I created for the editor last month. So I guess I'll ramble about that for a bit.
Enemies
This level has a couple of enemies to look out for, some returning and some completely new. The Bloxer and Roxer enemies are back, but they both got a purple-ish reskin in this area to fit their new environment more. (Kinda like the blue goombas in Super Mario bros 1)
There's also some new enemies, which are pretty much slight visual alterations of previous enemy types with new behavior.
The Dwops are on ceilings and only fall onto the player when you get close to them, With the Vrupps doing the exact opposite. Klacks go left to right on whatever platform they are on in a continuous cycle. Seekers are like Roxers, but land-based with a unique twist. Just don't let them see you if you don't want to meet their...friend.
Like I mentioned above, these enemies were made with the new editor in mind, so it was easier to do things that would've taken quite a bit of tinkering with the old system.
Speaking of the editor, It's was worth every single goddamn second to make that thing. It's now so convenient to add/remove enemies and objects and that alone has speed up development tremendously. I'm addicted.
Future/Closing thoughts
Level 2, level design wise, is also finished. After some final bugfixes and polish i'm planning to open the level up for play-testing to gather feedback. (so if you missed the opportunity last time, now's your chance!)
After play-testing is over and I implement changes, I'll start making art assets for the level and tiling the whole thing. This should take awhile since the level is bigger than level 1. then after all that is finished i'll work on the boss.
I already know what the next boss is gonna be, and just like last time it's a returning character from Boiboi 1. (can you guess who it is??) For some reason I have quite a bit of concept art for this boss, which is weird because I don't usually draw much concept art.
Anyways, that's all for today. I told you it would be somewhat shorter. Follow the game page (and me in general maybe???) for more garbage.
See Ya!
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