Introduction

Welcome back to another fantastic devblog about Great Ape!
We’ve got some grand new features to look at, so lets start of with some gifs!

New Features

We’ve been working on things for the player to interact such as levers and buttons. With some help from our programmer, Oskar. We wanted something to give the player more types of apes to use, we decided on three in total; small, medium and big. Each ape type has its own strengths and weaknesses.

The Big Apes are slower, can’t jump very high but they weighs more which helps with solving button puzzles.
The Medium Apes are the fastest, they can jump a little higher and a slightly lower weight compared the big apes.
The Small Apes have the highest jumping ability while being slightly faster than the big ape.

All these apes have to work together to solve any puzzle they come across to save more apes or simply get to the finish line. We’ve also added collectibles, 3 on each level. They’re awarded to players who decide to put a little extra effort in finding them. We’ve been discussing a possible reward for clever apes that are able to collect these items, but more on that further down!

What can we learn from Cuphead?

Now Cuphead and Great Ape aren’t exactly similar. But there’s a few lessons within Cuphead that can push Great Ape to become even greater!

I’ve played Cuphead on and off since its release, it is quite the marvel of the game not only due to its facinating artstyle but also for its slick gameplay!

Cuphead has a habit of teaching you the basics of something and then letting you gradually improve your skills with it over time.

Take the slapping mechanic for example. Its something you can do while midair to defeat any pink objects flying your way that also adds points towards your super meter. Its something you are taught the basics of in the very beginning. You can do it in the early fights, but its not too demanding or necessary. As things progress you practice and practice, especially in the mausoleum levels.

As you get further into the game, it keeps challenging you to improve your slapping skills and as you get close to the end. It becomes a requirement. This thinking is something I want to apply in Great Ape where we teach you a mechanic and over time you get to perfect it until you’re ready for the final test. Speaking of tests…

The Great Playtest

So we had our first playtest with 10+ people. The consensus was that they liked the overall style of the game as well as many of the features within. But as expected, there were a few bugs that we’re planning to deal with in the coming week!

Sometimes when developing a game its difficult to isolate what the good and bad features are. A playtest provides you with the necessary feedback to help you isolate these features.

Possible Future Features?!

So, this is an idea for a reward for getting collectibles in Great Ape. We were trying out how it would look with…

…Great Hats!

What’s Coming Next?

We’ve got some students coming round who will be playtesting our game for us. I’m going to be making 1-2 more levels adding up to a total of 5. I will also be going through the feedback we got from the first playtest and working with the team to solve the issues that have been spotted. We’re approaching the end of the project however so we won’t be able to add many more features before the prototype is done. It would be amazing to continue working on it further. Who knows what the future might hold!

All in all a fun week of work ahead!