PokeyPoke DEVLOG #2 - World layout & game structure

[@jordanottesen1186]

Getting Over It and Celeste are great call-outs. I was literally thinking about both just a few seconds before you referenced them

[@levildd]

You make me feel like we all sittin around a table just making games....good vibes....Great vibes.

[@MikeG-nz8gt]

You put a lot of thought into game design. I'm glad to see it. Also, your mechanics are interesting and your art is nice! Can't wait for the next update!

[@falco192]

Your game looks amazing, I love the mechanics of the two different blocks and the art and backgrounds are spectacular. by the way thanks for all the tutorials, they are very useful.

[@minirop]

I love how you put the real critical path of the game in the thumbnail instead of a lazy random arrow.

[@SaraSpalding]

Yeah! Who would put random arrows in their youtube thumbnails after all that would be so lazy I would never ever do such a thing.👀 Please subscribe and do not check my other videos thanks thanks thanks 👀👀👀

[@gwenmcgarry528]

I feel like having a jungle area after the core and before the pier would be good, just based off of what I cam tell so far, the game does seem a little short at the moment. Not sure what the story is (or if there will be one) but having some sort of incemtive to explore, and having your journey (even in the path of least resistance) feel worthwhile is important in order to encourage glong back through the game

[@Idiota_Profissional]

Damn, that… sounds like the best level design possible!

[@owdoogames]

It's Shaun Spalding! So nice to hear your dulcit tones. I used to watch your tutorials back in Covid Lockdown 2020™, when I first started messing about with GameMaker... I'm sorry to say I moved onto other game engines (I've tried them all - Gdevelop, Defold, Love2D, Unity, Unreal, Flax - but have settled on Godot). You popped up on my KZbin feed today and I'm so pleased to see you are moving forward with PokeyPoke, which looks more awesome than ever... as does your hair. Resubscribed :)

[@osazehenry5975]

I love games like this with simple, intuitive, and creative mechanics that lend themselves to satisfying and challenging gameplay. I hope it ends up feeling as good to play as it looks like it does.

[@timothygooding9544]

maybe the tower could show up in the background when at the pier and/or in an ending cutscene? maybe theres something at the top of the tower to activate to show you've conquered it that also lights up in the ending to show you got the true ending (doesnt need to actually change anything, just shows you did or did not accomplish it)

[@beardyluke]

I am watching your channel for some time! And you are really great creator! Love your project! I started working on Pixel art metroidvania and your videos help me a lot! Keep going!

[@DaeminN]

Regarding the hard jump and if it should be required, I think the hard jump should be hard, but not required. Considering, if you want the red gem you will have to do the jump anyways, so if someone is up for it, there is motivation to do it. Also for time attack trials/speed runs, being able to do the jump is a must, so I think it's a good optional path to keep. But then, when it comes to the depths area, make a similar jump, one that is required but just not as punishing, so dying and resetting rather than having to do a whole area to get back. Also cool insight into how you plan things to work!

[@SaraSpalding]

The point about the gem is very true, I had not considered that point of view.

[@asddsadsad-b8b]

Hey Shaun Great video! Can you maybe make a tutorial about how to do a Celeste-style camera? (It's similar to the one you did in pokeypoke)

[@dopamine7344]

this would be really cool, id assume its something about having trigger zones that when you touch the zone the camera pans to that zone but im struggling to wrap my head around it

[@asddsadsad-b8b]

@@dopamine7344 I managed to figure it out, if you want code or anything.

[@dopamine7344]

@@asddsadsad-b8b oh i would love if you could shed some knowledge actually im struggling lol

[@bobbyvg]

Hey Shaun just a heads up I think the name of your secret area can be seen in your “rooms” folder when you cut to game maker.

[@SaraSpalding]

true but thats an internal name from an old original idea it's changed since then so it may as well still read redacted lol :)

[@bobbyvg]

Kk that’s good to hear just wanted to give you a heads up so you weren’t caught off guard, loving the way the game is turning out!

[@gt6808a]

Hi Shaun - Are you just creating one gigantic room for the entire game? Do you have to manually control which objects / resources are instantiated or the gms just automatically decide that, eg, based on where the camera is pointed?

[@ChrisSutcliffe21]

If you wanted to strike a balance between being hard and forcing the player to make a jump, and also not having you fall into a whole new zone every failure, maybe you could have warp point unlock at the bottom instead of that door opening

[@theempireofstud]

Oh, yay, another dev log, by the way. When are you going to make part 2 of the rpg battle system tutorial it's OK if it takes a while that makes sense, but I am just curious!?

[@SaraSpalding]

I wanted it out this week but some stuff interrupted it. Hopefully next week.

[@theempireofstud]

@@SaraSpalding YAY and alright I hope those things are sorted out for you!

[@LuigiXHero]

As for the valley jump, you could recreate it in the depths at the end but with less of a harsh fail so they still have to do it but with much less punishment.

[@LunarcomplexMain]

A quick question and a note about the shortcut. Does Game Maker try to efficiently detect collision, lets say with the rooms of your size, if the player is across the entire map/room from a spike, will Game Maker filter out things that are that far away or even off screen automatically? Or is it still running through it's step event, or collision with an object loop every frame still? (I've currently been trying to make a Minecraft styled chunks loading mechanic for objects to be "turned off" when they don't really need to be considered) Also, the gameplay still looks incredible, and super fun to try and reach the skill ceiling of. As far as that jump goes, pole vaulting upside-down from left to right in the ravine to cross the gap, I would 100% make sure that's left in the game. A super difficult shortcut, passages or mechanics like this are very good for a game to have in terms of replay ability, also with a whole community of speedrunning, in a game like this, it would create amazing moments of seeing players quickly get through something with a low percent chance, until they've mastered it. However, keep in mind, the difficultly of this shortcut should be considered when what it's shortcutting. If it can shortcut the player around a part of the game that would leave out information the player should know, I would make sure it's a very, very difficult shortcut, like near impossible. Else if it doesn't skip some important information, then having a new player accidently find it, wouldn't really do too much harm. Personally, I prefer the more difficult shortcuts, being better for the already mentioned replay ability and speedrunning, etc.

[@SaraSpalding]

the bulk of my collision is done against the tilemap which is incredibly cheap (it's just a grid of numbers, in data form) but I do have exactly that kind of chunk style loading system for entities (such as spikes, machines, and so on). Collision checks do *some* shortcutting under the hood I believe, at the very minimum they only do box checks before bothering with precision checks (precision checking therefore, not usually as slow as people think!) but the bulk of the performance cost of a zillion entities is the rest of their events and step checks and so on not just collision. So it is very worth using some kind of dynamic loading and unloading if going for a very big room. You don't necessarily need to rely on instance deactivation like I do but it's a good starting point. No part of the deep cavern is considered truly part of the critical path (although it is technically part of the most likely path for a new player). If you manage to make the jump then you already know what the caverns would "teach" you (at least in terms of what's necessary for finishing the critical path.)

[@LunarcomplexMain]

@@SaraSpalding Awesome! Thank you for the information and looking forward to the next dev log.

[@ohalohuntero]

when planning your levels do you have a way to make sure they all "match up" with eachother? like so all the entrances/exits are aligned so if you were to piece together the entire map it fits together correctly?

[@ohalohuntero]

oh i've just watched further and each room is massive :O

[@SaraSpalding]

Yeah I decided I didn't really care about this, even though the deep caverns connects to the beach for example it isn't actually wide enough that it would make sense if the world were hypothetically all one big level. I find generally you can get away with a lot of this kind of thing in a 2d game with a zoomed in camera, limited periphery and area transitions. As opposed to say, if you're making a big 3d world like Mario 64, or Dark Souls 1, with a lot of camera control. Although even in those games you can still get away with some not-so-euclidean, "tardis-effects" if you're subtle about it.

[@ohalohuntero]

@@SaraSpalding Thanks for the response. i've been thinking on how i should segment my game. If there's some kind of method for planning all the levels out so they align or if it even matters etc. Really enjoyed the video thanks

[@sunguh]

Hey Shaun, the game looks great! I was wondering how you managed to divide the game room into smaller rooms :)

[@SaraSpalding]

Sure, can you be more specific? In GameMaker there is a "room" asset that I use for creating each individual zone and trial. And built in GML functions to move between them, although I also do some fancy transition effects with shaders etc.

[@sunguh]

@@SaraSpalding Thanks for your quick response! Right now in your room editor I can see that all the little rooms divided into smaller rectangles. How do you set your camera to lock or clamp to these rectangles so you don't see the adjacent room? Normally what I do is to draw all my rooms in photoshop to see the bigger picture and then create the rooms separately but it's a pain to follow. Follow up question; is it possible to make the rooms in different sizes? That would be a great tutorial cause I've never seen that before.

[@SaraSpalding]

​@@sunguh Ohhh sure! so that grid is actually just a visual helper for me. I flush it out of texture memory at the start of the game and use it for scale, so I know roughly how big a single screen is. Originally I did have a camera that was locked to this grid but now it is a bit more versatile and is controlled through big rectangular "camera zones" (I think I have the visibility of that layer off in this video.) But to lock a camera to a grid where the player is, it's actually pretty straightforward. You can use "div" to find out how many times a number divides into another in whole numbers. So "playerX div cameraWidth" will return how many "screens" into your room you are. Then multiply that number by the width of your camera to get the x position for the camera. And do the same thing in the y direction.

[@sunguh]

@@SaraSpalding oh wow thank you for the solution, I will definitely try that and hope I'll make it work. Still learning^^ Have a nice evening!

[@vd9187]

Very interesting bro

[@joLicata91]

Hi Shaun! You are doing a very very good job.. 1 cons: I don't like the spikes graphic.. I think is the only thing I will change in the game

[@SaraSpalding]

What don't you like about them?

[@joLicata91]

@@SaraSpalding I would prefer a Celeste's spikes graphic.. Because your spike looks fatty imho.. Btw all your work is awesome!

[@MeccGG]

Try making a very difficult dlc at the end like farewell in celeste

[@user-qp3js5ix6i]

YES

[@sup7530]

Hey, I was wondering if you could help me. This is a big problem with my game, and I can't find any tutorials about it. I use visual coding, and like for example, when I cut down a tree, I delete the tree and place 3 logs at tree.x and tree.y, but it creates 3 logs at EVERY tree in existence at the time. How can I make an object just at a specific object, not all the same objects? Thanks ❤

[@SaraSpalding]

each tree is an "instance" of your object, the object itself is the blueprint for those instances. So it sounds like you're doing something like with(objTree). In order to work with a single instance, you need its id. Every instance has an "id" value, how you get it depends on the context. Some collision functions return an instance id, collision/click events usually include the instance struct in the "other" keyword (so you can use other.id), so it depends how you're cutting down the tree. The simplest way would be if you're destroying the tree and that works already, simply create the logs at the local x/y in the destroy event of the tree.

[@kidshipley69]

Random crites are fair and balanced

[@comradechonky6328]

suiiiii