Void Wisp Dev Log for 8-17-2016



Hello everyone,

It’s been too long since I’ve done a development log for Void Wisp and I just released prealpha version 1.30, so I figured it’d be a good time for some update about this project. There’s a lot to go through but I’ll try not to ramble too much. (Too late…)

If you’re reading this and you have no idea what Void Wisp is well!, it’s a simple arcade runner in the vein of Helicopter or Flappy Bird, but instead of gaining points by surviving you gain points by coming close to obstacles without crashing into them.



Be sure to pick up Void Wisp on Itch.io.

Vote it on Steam Greenlight

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First up, BIG NEWS, Void Wisp will be at the Seattle Indies Expo (SIX) on Sunday, September 4th! SIX is free and open to the public, so anyone can come on down check out the 20 or so games that will be on display there. This is real exciting and real scary for me. I’ve helped out at events like SIX (and have volunteered at both SIX 2014 and 2015) but have never showed anything I’ve made off to the public like this.

I have some idea what to expect from the event and have been pretty frantically getting everything done for it. I don’t have a ton of money but I picked up some promotional material. So far I’ve got some business cards with the game’s info on it, a nice large poster, and a mailing list set up. Since the Wisp, the playable character, is essentially a ball I decided to pick up jawbreakers and other spherical candy to give out at the event. Giving out candy is kind of a cheap tactic I suppose, but buying custom pins or stickers was way too expensive for me and I figured stuff like jawbreakers represents the game adequately.

As for what I hope to get from the show. I’m not entirely sure to be honest. Exposure, I guess. If Void Wisp wasn’t accepted to SIX then I’m not sure if I’d even still be working on it. I would have probably gone back to doing office temp work. I’ll probably still need to do that just to pay the bills afterwards, but at least I’ve been working on something I really enjoy in the meantime. Hopefully people will like the game, sign up for the mailing list, download it from Itch, and vote for it on Greenlight. That’s all I can really hope for.

I’ve worked SIX before and I know just showing the game there won’t do too much. There have been real cool games that showed there and went on to have failed crowdfunding campaigns or were put on the back burner due to the devs’ life getting in the way, or the team dissolved due to creative differences. I’m well aware that could be a route Void Wisp may go down. Even if it’s a such small game made by just one person. I’ll be trying to mitigate that by attempting to finish it by December.

That segways nicely into what I’d like to discuss next, features and scope. With prealpha 1.30 I’ve added a lot of stuff to Void Wisp. Whenever I think of something to add I ask myself “Can I do this in a couple hours?” and if the answer is “Yes” then I do it. Thinking in things as little one off bits really helps me get working on specific things and helps prevent me from worrying about the big picture. Usually it takes an hour or two to get working right then I’ll come back to it later and polish it a bit. This update adds a lot of polish, but Void Wisp still has a ways to go.

I’ve always wanted to keep the scope of Void Wisp tiny. Super small. I’m not nearly as experienced as a lot of devs out there but I’ve been a hobbyist long enough to know that ambitious needs to be tempered by ability. While there are things that I’ve doing with this game that I’ve never tried to do before, none of them are beyond a point where I couldn’t figure things out. Sometimes I’ve had to ask for help, but I haven’t run into any major roadblocks. I’m confident that as long as I keep at it I’ll finish it.

So what are the big new things that I’ve added in this update? Well two new modes are now in! There’s now a Caravan Mode which is sort of like a time attack mode. Basically you have a limited amount of time before an unavoidable wall will spawn. Any time you crash into an object you lost time essentially making the wall grow closer. I find this mode a lot of fun. I think it’s my favorite. It’s a lot easier to get into since you can’t really fail it like you can the other modes. The penalty for messing up isn’t starting over but instead lowers your potential score.

Why is it called “Caravan” mode? Well back in the 80’s and 90’s Hudsonsoft would hold gaming tournaments called “Hudson All-Japan Caravan Festival.” These tournaments would have special versions of their games where players would have to score the most points within a limited time. They would then add a “Caravan” mode to the home versions of the games that appeared at those tournaments. The sorts of games that this mode would usually appear in were shoot’em’ups (like Star Soldier,) and Void Wisp certainly doesn’t fit that genre but I really like the name “Caravan Mode” for a time attack mode so I decided to go with it. Hopefully there won’t be any legal issues with it, but I doubt it.

The other new mode is Survival Mode. In it the game gets progressively faster and faster. Despite the name, the scoring is exactly the same as the other modes. I should probably change that. It does track how long you’ve survived and I might have it multiply your score for every 30 seconds you’ve survived. Or maybe have it just straight up add a point for every second you survive. Part of me doesn’t really want to do something like that for reasons that I’ve mentioned in a previous blog, but I do need to distinguish this mode a bit more. Perhaps something that players have to collect to keep from dying, but that might require a massive undertaking depending on how I do it. As it is right now though, Survival Mode feels pretty good. The gradual increase in speed adds a nice bit of challenge that I really like. It certainly needs polish but I don’t see myself removing that aspect of the mode.

Now what about all the other stuff I’ve added or altered in prealpha 1.30? Phew. It’s a lot.

Let’s talk about the music first. The game has simple semi-procedural melodies and I wanted to recreate that feeling with the title screen music. Getting the same sort of loose rhythmic pace of the in-game music took a while, but I’m quite happy with where it’s at right now. I put in a lot of effort for something that most players won’t notice or spend much time around, but I don’t think it’s wasted. The title screen and menus really help convey the spirit and presentation of a game. It’s very important to have them feel right. The music goes a long way in helping this game feel right.

It was also just a lot of fun to do. I went to school for music and don’t really get to use my degree for much so adding this system really helps flex my musical muscles a bit. GameMaker’s audio functions are real lacking so to do what I have to takes a bit more effort and is still quite limited. I’d love to have reactive filters and delay effects, but I can’t really do that in GameMaker. Working within limits breeds creativity however, and I’ve been told people really like what I’ve show of it so far.

Basically the way the title screen music works is it chooses a random amount between 4 and 8 then assigns that amount notes. Each note has a list of intervals it can jump to based on the note type setting. Though the only note type that this currently matters for is “Flowing.” After that series of notes is played it then goes on a section that is 3 times the amount of notes that I like to call the “vamp.” This will be different each time. After the vamp it will then play the original melody again.

The rhythm is randomized, but loosely fits a quarter note, half note, whole note, sub-eighth note distribution. It’s deliberately slow to better parallel the in game music. There’s nothing complex or revolutionary about this system, but it was still bit of a chore to do in Game Maker.

The other big thing I’ve been working on with this patch is making the game feel “juicier” and adding more feedback for the player. Some of the feedback I’ve received was players weren’t sure if some things were obstacles or collectables when they crashed into them so I added a slight screen shake effect. I haven’t gotten feedback about it yet, but I think it adds a much needed oomph to the crashes that says “Hey don’t hit this!” There is, of course, an option to toggle it off.

I’ve also added a grinding effect when you’re going along obstacles. I think this really helps to communicate that you’re close to an obstacle and adds a bit of tension to gaining points. It only happens from certain ranges so if you’re not close enough it won’t display. This actually helped me notice I was adding points incorrectly. In earlier versions of the game, you’d only gain points from the closest obstacle to you rather than any obstacle you were touching. Adding the grinding sparks both brought this to my attention and allowed me to fix the issue completely.

One of the most recent helpful use feedback things I added was an effect that creates a little wisp that travels up to your score once you’ve gained points. This is to help communicate what you’re supposed to be doing to earn points.

People don’t read. I have many places that tell people the goal of the game and they still don’t really do it, so I definitely need to employ more “nudging” to get people to realize what that should be doing. I’ve added a hint system that is displayed on the bottom of the score screen but I’m not sure if anyone will notice it. I might move it to the top or center.

Well that’s it for now!