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It should at least be easier to debug when you can display your controls as a sphere

Giving myself better visual debugging tools is going to be a big part of cracking what exactly is going on in the flight physics/mechanics. It's been too difficult to debug through logging or stepping through code while flying.

I'm really motivated to make the flying different from how an airplane is expected to feel. It's tough because lots of players (and myself) can't help but compare the bat to a plane but I feel like it's fundamental to my design goal to differentiate from airplane games.

it's like camera itself feels affected by the bat rather than camera pointing direction for the bat to go to

This is interesting feedback because the camera absolutely is just lagging behind the bat as the bat flies. This is intentional to try to make it feel less stiff. I have some camera logic to 'lean into' turns, as the bat rotates the camera should rotate in that direction as well. Maybe if I intensify that effect I can make the camera feel more natural. Also the camera could be a bit intelligent and bias towards gameplay goals, but the gameplay is still so earlier I don't want to worry about that yet.

It's tough because players want a fast, smooth, agile, responsive bat. They want an airplane! I need to find a way to keep it from being frustrating while presenting a unique flying style.

Yeah, debugging anything that's realtime and math heavy is not viable. I usually have graphs, hitboxes and additional interfaces to help, together with pausing and frame by frame manual increments.

You can always make it control sexy first and add the bat jank second by tweaking the bat flight parameters and animation for realism without touching the camera and general control style. Doing it the other way around is unlikely to give a good result and you will be left with a prototype you can't even reuse. I wouldn't mind janky flight as long as it doesn't feel like I'm fighting with stiff controls.