Finally wrapped up all the camera modes, and made his head follow where you’re looking in first-person! Crazy how much difference these polishes make in the overall feel. Onto more fun things!

#gamedev #indiegame #godot #n64 #lowpoly

Who decided to call it calamari and not squonion rings

Thanks! Yeah, the camera is parented to a SpringArm, which is parented to a Node3D that handles the vertical height, which is parented to another Node3D that handles the y-rotation. Might be over-complicated but makes all the cam transitions I’ve been working on a lot simpler.

Follow cam: at baseline moves slowly to be behind you, but the speed in which it moves scales with your movement speed, so if you start booking it, it'll quickly center itself. And it can toggle between the two main camera distances!

#gamedev #indiegame #godot #n64 #lowpoly

Last main camera mode I want to add is follow-behind, that’ll probably be the most hands-off of the three!

Camera revamp let me easily include free-cam for people who don't believe in angle-locked superiority (probably most people).

Swapping cam modes will be done in a pause menu, so the sharp camera snap won't be visible.

#gamedev #indiegame #godot #n64 #lowpoly

Angle-locked camera is rebuilt! Forgot I made the first cam before I even had a character, no wonder it felt stiff and the code was GROSS. New one has look-ahead and is able to toggle inverting the x and y inputs. And I'm cooking up even more cam modes 👀 #godot #indiedev

bsky.app/profile/phyo...

Mr. Krabs looking as confused as I am.

Coming out of my Pokopia coma and opening Godot for the first time in weeks, trying to pick up where I left off

My wife’s “oh my god” when she saw me snapping this photo was a perfect 50/50 blend of exasperation and amusement

heh looks like Machoke’s peein’

The Nintendo Switch App is an easy and convenient way to get screenshots from your console to your phone, allowing you to preserve snapshots that bring you warm fuzzies for years to come

How am I supposed to work on my video game when I HAVE to play Pokopia with every second of my free time?

SNOW LEVEL. Big question - falling snow particles or no?

Updating the camera, added look-ahead! It tilts to show the direction you face. Tracks you sharply on the x/z-plane but lags on the y-plane so jumps don't jerk the cam around. And it'll tilt sharply if you ascend or fall quickly, to show where you'll land!

#gamedev #indiegame #godot #n64 #lowpoly

Forgot to say I apply movement speed from the controller input just like on flat ground before doing the floor-normal! So four steps, not three

-rotate based on input
-rotate based on velocity direction
-apply input velocity
-apply floor-normal velocity

That way the player still has some influence but they’re constantly being “pulled” downhill, and the strength of the pull gets larger as the hill gets steeper!

I do it in steps:
- rotate the character toward the controller input direction
- rotate them again toward their velocity’s direction (i.e. down the hill)
- get the ground normal, strip out the y component, and add (it times a multiplier) to the character’s velocity

brb gotta try somethin’ real quick

The new protagonists in Pokemon Winds and Waves

Why do their Switch 2s look like hoverboards 🤔

#Pokemon30 #PokemonDay #PokemonWindsWaves

Very green grass and very blue water from Pokemon Winds and Waves

Highly saturated beach screenshot from Pokemon Winds and Waves

Screenshot of Sonic on a beach

Mario on a beach in Mario Sunshine

Welcome back, early 2000s ultra-saturated beach setting 😌

#pokemon #pokemon30 #pokemonday

Makes sense!

And yeah I’m kinda aiming for a similar feel, if I had to break down my game it’d be 75% platforming/movement feel from a game like SM64 and 25% aesthetics and puzzle/NPC interaction from the Rare 64 games

That video mentions this thesis on flow in games, also pretty good

www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/...

i.e. in A Hat In Time, your double jump and dive are reset by bouncing on enemies, so having (that mechanic + a big pit in your level + enemies strategically placed to bounce across the pit) becomes more than a sum of its parts when done together

What Makes a Good 3D Platformer? YouTube video by Nickolai Boulton

I watched this one a while ago, made me think about character movement, level design, and enemy types all being three parts of The Juice in a 3D platformer, and thinking about them as a whole is integral

youtu.be/SGq5Zaygl-g?...

BUT when you’re against a wall or in a smaller space in SM64 where the cam gives you that NEH NEH sound and starts to move but then goes back to where it was, even though that’s the angle you NEED in order to see where to go, I want to perish on the spot

i.e. a ledge is thin but isn’t supposed to be crazy difficult, make it line up with a compass direction and the player can fully smash the stick into a corner that’ll let them run across at full speed. Gives level design a lot of freedom to help or hinder the player based on the desired experience

Having a camera that pivots around you in eight set positions that correspond to the eight corners of the controller gate means you can run in a perfect compass direction regardless of where the camera is, so levels can be built around that idea to aid in platforming!

So obviously it’s a little clickbaity, it’s a really good *idea* that works great…until you get into a tight space lol. I want to go in depth in a video where it works and where it doesn’t (and how I’m “fixing” it in my game), but tldr I think when the cam and the level work together it’s buttery

Closeup picture of an N64 controller’s joystick, with the stick’s notched gate fully visible.

Really want to make devlog videos 1) to document my game’s progress, 2) to get more eyes on it, and 3) to deep dive into my hottest (but correct! 😏) game design takes, like “Mario 64’s camera was *good*, actually!”

#gamedev #indiegame

This also means I’m overhauling the camera, going to add toggleable options and some look-ahead logic 🎥