looks like the gameplay is pretty much the same... since we are meant to flap so much, and repeatedly, then why not let me hold the button? i think going greyscale is an improvement. gives the idea that its dark and this is your night vision. wish the humans had some reaction to my presence once im close enough. when i read your post i could not believe that so much time has passed. your song is nice, and fits the `chill ` vibe of the game. and of course, Tomo`s models are full of soul(the good kind). i think you can still make controlling it more responsive while still retaining the physical feel of flying by adding a bit more of sideways force, especially when i`m activelly trying to `steer` and the bat still has some roll
since we are meant to flap so much, and repeatedly, then why not let me hold the button?
Flapping will definitely get an overhaul at some point. Part of what I want to do is see if I can make it fix your below feedback:
i think you can still make controlling it more responsive while still retaining the physical feel of flying by adding a bit more of sideways force, especially when i`m activelly trying to `steer` and the bat still has some roll
I'd like to make flapping the way you 'power' your way through turns. While you're rolled into the turn, flapping generates force in an upward direction relative to Batty so if I give the player more powerful flaps they should be able to essentially get that 'sideways' force and flap mid-turn to make the turn tighter. This may require a flying tutorial to make clear.
So I'm thinking tie flapping to a stamina meter so players can have powerful flaps at their disposal at the expense of stamina. The power of the flap may need to be tied to how long they hold the flap button, so I'll have to see if I can do an auto-flap for holding the button as well. Or maybe flapping comes from an analog control like a gamepad trigger?
Im not familiar with how winged animals work, but another idea could be have a button for forward flap and one for upward. and perhaps one for dive, where you tuck the wings and make yourself `sharp`... just spitballing some ideas
Very cute character, nice girl and bat model and texturing.
The coloring of everything is pretty good. The red and grayscale work together well. Not sure about the blue though.
Blue is not bad, but I think it's not equal to other colors, like there's not enough blue things to justify it with only the orb and small echo location waves.
Maybe guys who are behind buildings should be blue and not red to signify they're visible through echolocation?
Initially steering feels bad, but after figuring it out it's pretty rewarding. The instinct is to keep pressing spacebar to brute force the trajectory of flight, but it's more like a space rocket (with some steering with gliding), where you pick a direction and then wait for the right moment to flap but only apply as little force as necessary.
There's a clamp on looking down, but not on looking up - you can do a glitchy flip.
Blue is not bad, but I think it's not equal to other colors, like there's not enough blue things to justify it with only the orb and small echo location waves.
I was just ideaguying on this, I think I'll move echolocation to be a skill icon and the blue orb will become a yellow orb and represent stamina. I'm thinking about making flapping more powerful but limited by stamina. As you found out, you need to use the flapping to help you turn, so I want to make it more available to players if they've saved their stamina.
From an overall color perspective, yellow may clash as well. My thought was make the game black and white with hints of color, but having a large yellow UI element may be too distracting. Perhaps yellow FX around the flapping or something.
There's a clamp on looking down, but not on looking up - you can do a glitchy flip.
This is intentional, hopefully the downward clamp doesn't feel too restrictive. Flips are a little odd, I may need to find a way to make them complete smoother. Other aerial maneuvers like Immelmanns I'd like to add or make happen more naturally.
Are waves different or it repeating?
It's just repeating, only your health drains faster and faster. The wave based gameplay was put in to test the mechanics, I'm going to ditch it once I make a bigger map.
The controls were a bit wonky, but after a few plays I (mostly) got the hang of it. Still didn't get very far, but I probably would have preferred non-interverted vertical controls. Still, cute blood sucking sim and models!
Hmmm floaty like she drifts in the air? I think down the line I'll make it so she changes direction quicker to whatever direction she's facing so there's not so much drifting. That or make flapping more powerful so players can flap their way out of a drift.
I've been trying to have the flying be a bit 'looser' since she's in an animal form and shouldn't move in a precise way like an airplane. But I've clearly let the mechanics get too difficult and unapproachable. Down the line I'm going to look into making flapping more useful as a way to control in-air movement. Thanks for the feedback
I thought it was fun, hitting space allows the player to go faster. I don't really like the tank controls. I'm not sure how you can improve it, but turning is really hard to control. I hope you keep going with this.
What do you mean by tank controls? My goal is approachable flying controls, like Starfox.
turning is really hard to control
I sort of unintentionally made flapping (spacebar) the main way to control your movement. So if you want to turn you need to use flapping to do it. It's probably not intuitive enough right now, I think Batty should naturally glide and bank into a turn without needing to flap, it's something to look into.
I hope you keep going with this.
I'm committed! It might take me years at my current pace, but I don't give up once I start something.
Soulful intro. If you're going to have the transition be static, you could try creating an animorphs-like transition between the static pictures.
The higher max speed and flap acceleration is great; it really feels like you can dare risk acrobatics now instead of always hopelessly racing down pedestrians. But the rest of the new physics is awkward. In particular, collisions are much more punishing in throwing you off-track now. And difficulty is way higher than it was before.
I'm not sure the Death Metal font fits the comfy music and vibe.
The UI in general is the weakest link in this right now, I think. Fix that and the game is ready to get some new content.
If you're going to have the transition be static, you could try creating an animorphs-like transition between the static pictures.
That would be cool, but I'm thinking the transformation could someday be part of gameplay.
The higher max speed and flap acceleration is great; it really feels like you can dare risk acrobatics now instead of always hopelessly racing down pedestrians. But the rest of the new physics is awkward. In particular, collisions are much more punishing in throwing you off-track now. And difficulty is way higher than it was before.
This is odd because I didn't really intend to change the physics or speed. I did add some really shitty new collisions detection code to stop Batty from phasing through walls, maybe that made collisions more punishing and I didn't notice? You're the second person to note this so something is different.
I'm not sure the Death Metal font fits the comfy music and vibe.
Probably not but I'm still feeling out the vibe. I like the idea of the game being comfy but I also like the idea of it having a dark edge and playing with goth/metal imagery. It's inconsistent but there's time for everything to coalesce as I go.
I saw you put up a game page! Looking forward to that when it's ready.
I played in Firefox with nearly 200 tabs open with no issues, but my laptop is pretty good.
It was my first time playing the game, so I cannot comment on the control improvements you made. I expected it to play with just mouse, so I was surprised when I read the controls.
I made it to wave 3.
Cute models from Tomo.
I am sure you got plenty of ideas how to build on top of what you got. I read your devlog so I know your next step is gonna be UI and shader things, but of course I look forward to different maps, abilities and content in general.
Thanks for playing (and for reading the whole devlog)!
Unfortunately mouse won't work on browsers because the game requires a great deal of mouse movement and I reset the mouse to the center of the screen when they hit the edge, seamlessly so the player doesn't notice. I haven't found a way to do this in browser, I can't take control of the mouse position like that.
Second person dying after wave 3.. I wonder if the speed and flap power changes made it less intuitive..
Yeah, it makes sense it is not possible to do that in browser. In offline build I think it would also be cool if players could hold a button to look around with the mouse without changing their movement direction.
Second person dying after wave 3.. I wonder if the speed and flap power changes made it less intuitive..
I only had one human left, so I thought it was just my poor blood management. The game can be pretty random when it comes to where humans run away. In one playthrough you could just fly in circles and hit them, but on the other one they could be running back and forth which would require more strategic approach, so I wouldn't worry about balancing that given that is not going to be the main focus of the game (based on your comments below).
I need to add lighting in and I think that will help with depth perception and make it easier. I'll try to take a look at the crashing camera, maybe it should be more stable so you're not so compromised post-hit.
I would like the Vamps (girl) model to be used in gameplay someday. An idea I've played with is that you must suck blood in that form so you have to fly then transform and attack. Or maybe you transform to Vamps form when hurt and it's a vulnerable state.
Made it to wave 3, before i lost too much blood doing loopings.
Was playing in Chrome, had no issues whatsoever. Flying feels smooth, wave clearing laugh is cute. Big plus for the orbs, but whats the plan for the blue orb? Whats the future plan in general? Seems like a solid movement is in place.
The blur orb represents your special BATTY VAMPS power: echolocation! Press F, LMB, or A on gamepad to see through walls. It's helpful for finding humans.
In the future I'd like to make a full city to fly around in. I also want the humans to have real AI so they act normally until they are aware of Batty then have a fight or flight response or raise the alarm. So potentially it could turn into a bit of a stealth game. I have technical hurdles I have to overcome before I can get there though.
Oh shit, while i was playing i was thinking to myself "if only i could see through walls" lmao.
Sounds like a cool project. Do you plan on letting Batty land in specific spots to take a break? I'd imagine, a full city, with humans raising alarms and everything, would need to have the player observe and plan a bit. Draining the blood while flying would be a stressful thing in that moment.
Oh the blood drain mechanic will be removed at some point. It's just there right now so I could release the prototype with a semblance of gameplay. I'd like the game to end up as a chill experience flying around a city at night, interspersed by brutal blood sucking.
Comments
looks like the gameplay is pretty much the same... since we are meant to flap so much, and repeatedly, then why not let me hold the button? i think going greyscale is an improvement. gives the idea that its dark and this is your night vision. wish the humans had some reaction to my presence once im close enough. when i read your post i could not believe that so much time has passed. your song is nice, and fits the `chill ` vibe of the game. and of course, Tomo`s models are full of soul(the good kind). i think you can still make controlling it more responsive while still retaining the physical feel of flying by adding a bit more of sideways force, especially when i`m activelly trying to `steer` and the bat still has some roll
Thanks for playing and the feedback!
Flapping will definitely get an overhaul at some point. Part of what I want to do is see if I can make it fix your below feedback:
I'd like to make flapping the way you 'power' your way through turns. While you're rolled into the turn, flapping generates force in an upward direction relative to Batty so if I give the player more powerful flaps they should be able to essentially get that 'sideways' force and flap mid-turn to make the turn tighter. This may require a flying tutorial to make clear.
So I'm thinking tie flapping to a stamina meter so players can have powerful flaps at their disposal at the expense of stamina. The power of the flap may need to be tied to how long they hold the flap button, so I'll have to see if I can do an auto-flap for holding the button as well. Or maybe flapping comes from an analog control like a gamepad trigger?
Im not familiar with how winged animals work, but another idea could be have a button for forward flap and one for upward. and perhaps one for dive, where you tuck the wings and make yourself `sharp`... just spitballing some ideas
I like that idea. I was thinking once I get the standard flapping working i would have more specialized flying moves like that.
The coloring of everything is pretty good. The red and grayscale work together well. Not sure about the blue though.
Blue is not bad, but I think it's not equal to other colors, like there's not enough blue things to justify it with only the orb and small echo location waves.
Maybe guys who are behind buildings should be blue and not red to signify they're visible through echolocation?
Initially steering feels bad, but after figuring it out it's pretty rewarding.
The instinct is to keep pressing spacebar to brute force the trajectory of flight, but it's more like a space rocket (with some steering with gliding), where you pick a direction and then wait for the right moment to flap but only apply as little force as necessary.
There's a clamp on looking down, but not on looking up - you can do a glitchy flip.
Are waves different or it repeating?
I was just ideaguying on this, I think I'll move echolocation to be a skill icon and the blue orb will become a yellow orb and represent stamina. I'm thinking about making flapping more powerful but limited by stamina. As you found out, you need to use the flapping to help you turn, so I want to make it more available to players if they've saved their stamina.
From an overall color perspective, yellow may clash as well. My thought was make the game black and white with hints of color, but having a large yellow UI element may be too distracting. Perhaps yellow FX around the flapping or something.
This is intentional, hopefully the downward clamp doesn't feel too restrictive. Flips are a little odd, I may need to find a way to make them complete smoother. Other aerial maneuvers like Immelmanns I'd like to add or make happen more naturally.
It's just repeating, only your health drains faster and faster. The wave based gameplay was put in to test the mechanics, I'm going to ditch it once I make a bigger map.
Thanks for playing!
The controls were a bit wonky, but after a few plays I (mostly) got the hang of it. Still didn't get very far, but I probably would have preferred non-interverted vertical controls. Still, cute blood sucking sim and models!
Thanks for playing!
Having togglable vertical controls is on the list. Anything else specifically that felt wonky?
The turns felt a bit wide, but it just means I had to focus on using the spacebar boost more to go straight once I found a direction to go.
Nice smooth movement. The bat makes cute sounds. Surprisingly it all worked fine for me on Firefox (not nightly) @ Linux. Footage: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2025288497?t=0h29m6s (played on KB)
Thanks for playing. Twitch won't let me view that video though.
Whoops. https://files.catbox.moe/2tdd8e.mp4
Thanks, that's very helpful for me to watch
Didn't like how the flying felt so floaty. I played until I died, so about 2 minutes. XD
Hmmm floaty like she drifts in the air? I think down the line I'll make it so she changes direction quicker to whatever direction she's facing so there's not so much drifting. That or make flapping more powerful so players can flap their way out of a drift.
It just depends on what feel your going for but I like tight controls.
I've been trying to have the flying be a bit 'looser' since she's in an animal form and shouldn't move in a precise way like an airplane. But I've clearly let the mechanics get too difficult and unapproachable. Down the line I'm going to look into making flapping more useful as a way to control in-air movement. Thanks for the feedback
I thought it was fun, hitting space allows the player to go faster. I don't really like the tank controls. I'm not sure how you can improve it, but turning is really hard to control. I hope you keep going with this.
Thanks for playing!
What do you mean by tank controls? My goal is approachable flying controls, like Starfox.
I sort of unintentionally made flapping (spacebar) the main way to control your movement. So if you want to turn you need to use flapping to do it. It's probably not intuitive enough right now, I think Batty should naturally glide and bank into a turn without needing to flap, it's something to look into.
I'm committed! It might take me years at my current pace, but I don't give up once I start something.
Soulful intro. If you're going to have the transition be static, you could try creating an animorphs-like transition between the static pictures.
The higher max speed and flap acceleration is great; it really feels like you can dare risk acrobatics now instead of always hopelessly racing down pedestrians. But the rest of the new physics is awkward. In particular, collisions are much more punishing in throwing you off-track now. And difficulty is way higher than it was before.
I'm not sure the Death Metal font fits the comfy music and vibe.
The UI in general is the weakest link in this right now, I think. Fix that and the game is ready to get some new content.
Thanks for playing!
That would be cool, but I'm thinking the transformation could someday be part of gameplay.
This is odd because I didn't really intend to change the physics or speed. I did add some really shitty new collisions detection code to stop Batty from phasing through walls, maybe that made collisions more punishing and I didn't notice? You're the second person to note this so something is different.
Probably not but I'm still feeling out the vibe. I like the idea of the game being comfy but I also like the idea of it having a dark edge and playing with goth/metal imagery. It's inconsistent but there's time for everything to coalesce as I go.
I saw you put up a game page! Looking forward to that when it's ready.
I played in Firefox with nearly 200 tabs open with no issues, but my laptop is pretty good.
It was my first time playing the game, so I cannot comment on the control improvements you made. I expected it to play with just mouse, so I was surprised when I read the controls.
I made it to wave 3.
Cute models from Tomo.
I am sure you got plenty of ideas how to build on top of what you got. I read your devlog so I know your next step is gonna be UI and shader things, but of course I look forward to different maps, abilities and content in general.
Thanks for playing (and for reading the whole devlog)!
Unfortunately mouse won't work on browsers because the game requires a great deal of mouse movement and I reset the mouse to the center of the screen when they hit the edge, seamlessly so the player doesn't notice. I haven't found a way to do this in browser, I can't take control of the mouse position like that.
Second person dying after wave 3.. I wonder if the speed and flap power changes made it less intuitive..
Yeah, it makes sense it is not possible to do that in browser. In offline build I think it would also be cool if players could hold a button to look around with the mouse without changing their movement direction.
I only had one human left, so I thought it was just my poor blood management. The game can be pretty random when it comes to where humans run away. In one playthrough you could just fly in circles and hit them, but on the other one they could be running back and forth which would require more strategic approach, so I wouldn't worry about balancing that given that is not going to be the main focus of the game (based on your comments below).
Kinda hard and the fact that hitting anything also costs blood energy (And kinda messes with the camera) is annyoing.
I like the vamp girl's model, so I wonder if it'll have any usses besides the title screen.
Thanks for playing!
I need to add lighting in and I think that will help with depth perception and make it easier. I'll try to take a look at the crashing camera, maybe it should be more stable so you're not so compromised post-hit.
I would like the Vamps (girl) model to be used in gameplay someday. An idea I've played with is that you must suck blood in that form so you have to fly then transform and attack. Or maybe you transform to Vamps form when hurt and it's a vulnerable state.
OBLIGATORY SELF-POST TO EXPLAIN WHAT'S NEW:
Those are the big user-facing items. if you want the whole, boring speal a new devlog is here: https://frenchfriesguy.itch.io/batty-vamps/devlog/660706/new-year-new-update
Made it to wave 3, before i lost too much blood doing loopings.
Was playing in Chrome, had no issues whatsoever. Flying feels smooth, wave clearing laugh is cute. Big plus for the orbs, but whats the plan for the blue orb? Whats the future plan in general? Seems like a solid movement is in place.
Thanks for playing!
The blur orb represents your special BATTY VAMPS power: echolocation! Press F, LMB, or A on gamepad to see through walls. It's helpful for finding humans.
In the future I'd like to make a full city to fly around in. I also want the humans to have real AI so they act normally until they are aware of Batty then have a fight or flight response or raise the alarm. So potentially it could turn into a bit of a stealth game. I have technical hurdles I have to overcome before I can get there though.
Oh shit, while i was playing i was thinking to myself "if only i could see through walls" lmao.
Sounds like a cool project. Do you plan on letting Batty land in specific spots to take a break? I'd imagine, a full city, with humans raising alarms and everything, would need to have the player observe and plan a bit. Draining the blood while flying would be a stressful thing in that moment.
Oh the blood drain mechanic will be removed at some point. It's just there right now so I could release the prototype with a semblance of gameplay. I'd like the game to end up as a chill experience flying around a city at night, interspersed by brutal blood sucking.