Design choices and a few gfycats for the grapple gun, climbing, and inventory systems for Jackie & The Crystal.

As always, be aware that everything is subject to change, and the below will not necessarily represent the final art/playstyle(s) of the game. Design is iterative by nature! Also, if you have any tips on what to improve/change about the way I’m doing Devlogs, please feel free to let me know! I’m probably most responsive on Twitter (@PixelSpice) or Reddit (/u/PixelSpice). Want to learn a bit more about Jackie & the Crystal, check out Devlog 0 that explains a bit about the game.

Oh the joys of flying!



While not a unique concept, it’s not as straight forward as it may seem from a design perspective – just a few choices that needed to be made:

Will the character have momentum or fly a fixed path? In short, yes. The choice (so far) was to use our character controller helper to control the characters momentum whenever an interruption to the fixed path is detected. Batman’s grappling gun uses real physics, but we’re aiming for player responsiveness above else – the current plan is to remove or reduce current momentum when a new grapple is started.

Can the character disengage mid flight? Yes, but they maintain momentum they had when they cancel the grapple.

Can the character grapple mid-flight? Yes, and, minor spoilers, this is actually one of the core mechanics for the boss fight after you obtain both ranged items.

Does the grapple gun act as a weapon? Not exactly. Unlike the hookshot from Zelda we weren’t planning on having the grappling gun act as a weapon per se. (Sorry – no stunning the enemies from afar!) Instead, it will act more like the tool it is. Hit things, pull things, and bring them to you – just don’t expect damage out of it.

Can you grapple anything? How do you do the grapple check? Grappling isn’t planned to be free-form “Spiderman 2” webslinging. It was like this before implementing the check for the appropriate collision tag. While it was fun it was too much freedom for an action/adventure game.

How early in the game does the player obtain the item? That’s not set in stone as of yet, but it will likely be decently early on.



On a side note, at the start of the next gfycat you’ll see my obsessive roll-instead-of-walk habit. This was not an intentional part of the gif originally…

Rocks are really hard to look at.

I started working on Jackie & the Crystal back in January – a couple months before Zelda:Breath of the Wild (BotW) came out. The climbing in that game is amazing. Don’t expect that – but do check out BotW if you somehow have missed it – it’s a fantastic game. The player will have some freedom while climbing, but it will be limited to climbable surfaces:

One of the things that I enjoyed working on was figuring out a good way to allow for dynamic transitioning from one surface to another. , while keeping the character properly aligned. The climbing overall looks very Ocarina of Time, which was very much the goal:

I still plan on adding some additional smoothing and inverse kinematics to assist with hand/foot placement later.

A short blurb on the Inventory:

There are a lot of things inspired by Ocarina of Time in this game/project, and the inventory style is one of them. The current plan is to have a limited number of items/equipment the player obtains during the game, with some items being upgraded/changed during the game. A quick peak at how this works with the four currently implemented items:

(From top to bottom, 1H Sword, shield, grapple gun, crystal.)

Until next time!

I’ll try to keep devlogs shorter and more focused in the future – I kinda got carried away with topics in this one. The next one should be on AI and/or the crystal animation/interface as those are currently the current areas of focus