While staying quite about the game for a while I was busy preparing things for bringing the game to E3, showing the game to journalists and the world in the Devolver parking lot. I'm happy to report it all went really, really well, and I'm so grateful for having gotten this opportunity, and I'm so so grateful people really seem to enjoy the game! If you haven't already, check a look at the trailer above!

And as if just the adventure of going to E3 wasn't enough, the game got nominated for "Best of E3" by PC Gamer and CGM! It also got nominated for "Best Action Game" by IGN! And it won "Best Indie Game" by Resetmx! Incredible. And don't forget all of these nominations happened next to big AAA titles. Feels really surreal.

Oh yeah, and there was actual Pedro swag! (As you might spot in the lower left corner of the above image)

IGN posted a gameplay video and it's already got over a million views. Check it out here:

There are also a bunch of video interviews floating around, some of which you can find here:

Thank you all for being part of the journey up to this point, and here's hoping you'll stick with the game until the actual release!

Oh, and if you haven't already, feel free to wishlist the game on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/557340/My_Friend_Pedro/

Cheerio! Victor

Hey! Look! I'm alive, and so is the project. Sorry for the silence on here. If you've missed me and want to see more from the game more often, be sure to follow my Twitter: https://twitter.com/deadtoast_com

It takes a bit more effort to write something for the DevLog, and I like to focus my time as much as possible on actually making the game.. so... yeah.

Anyway! Here's a quick summary of some of the stuff that's been going on since last time.


I give to you: The Skateboard. So this one seems to be a bit of a crowd pleaser. There will be moments where you can use a skateboard and shoot bad-dudes at the same time. Because.. why not.


So after thinking about more cool things you could interact with in the game I thought of doing barrel running. I like the barrel because it can be used to run over enemies or if a barrel is placed above an enemy you can shoot the barrel to make it fall down and take out the enemy below.


I've been wanting to add kicking/melee for a while. I used to have a punching thing before, but it didn't feel right. I finally figured out a way of doing kicking that makes sense with the game. I'm quite happy with the fact that you have to "aim" your kick, or that the kick follows the direction you aim in.


This is the latest addition. Basically when doing play testing a lot of people were trying to do the split aim while swinging and later realizing they couldn't because one of the hands are used to grab on to the rope. I had a little think and thought it would be cool if you could grab the rope with your legs, freeing up both arms for split shooting.


I'm just including this GIF to show how some of the visuals have progressed. I'm quite liking the colour scheme going on in this level.


I also had a quick go at making some promo art. I went to Gamescom in Cologne a month ago, or so, and needed some flyers. It was amazing to meet developers from all over and even a couple of fans showed up which totally made the whole trip for me! It makes me so full of motivation knowing there are people out there who not only play stuff I make, but actually enjoy it! No feeling quite like it.

Aaand that's it for now. Don't forget... For more frequent updates, be sure to follow Twitter @deadtoast_com
Baaiiii

Heya!

I guess by now you're probably used to the long silences between these DevLog updates. But fear not! It doesn't not mean there is no progress on the game. Quite the contrary! I've been so busy working on the game that I just haven't had time to keep ya'll updated through here. I do however try to post a little something something over on Twitter every once in a while (@deadtoast_com)

So! I thought I'd do a little compilation of what I've been posting on twitter for anyone who might have missed it. Prepare for GIF overload!

So this is a little snippet of what Pedro's world currently looks like. There will be a short part of the game where things might get a bit... weird...

Here's another little preview of what another theme currently looks like. It's supposed to be some sort of electricity power plant-sort-of-location.

Again, here's another theme. Like everything else you've seen so far it's Work in Progress. The GIF also demonstrates some of the more "puzzely" bits of the game where the tempo slows down a bit.

Aaand another theme. This one's a sewage. Because all video games must have a sewage theme.

Some good ol' sliding-and-shooting-action.

This is what I've been polishing up most recently, namely making it easier to pull of the move you see above. The kicking trajectory of objects are now visualized better and if you're close enough to an enemy it helps you auto aim your kicking to the enemies head. Jolly fun stuff.

This GIF is a bit special, actually, since it's exported directly from the actual game itself! Meaning the current plan is that you'll be able to export your own GIFs of yourself pulling off cool shizzle in the game, without having to use any third party GIF recording software!

Aaand that's probably enough stuff for now. There's still lots of work to be done, and there's still lots of work you haven't seen yet that has already been done. Like, for example, something that's worth a quick mention is that there is now a scoring system which adds to the general feedback of when you're doing cool stuff, and creates great opportunities for replayablity.

Until next time!
Toodles

Thank you for your kind words :)

Hold on to your hats and take a deep breath. Things are about to get a bit... strange...

The game is pretty close to having a rough version of all the gameplay elements now. This post will mainly focus on a particular part of the game, namely Pedro's world *distant rumblings of thunder*

The idea of Pedro's world is that anything can happen and I can play around with ideas that would otherwise maybe break the setting of the rest of the game.

First up we've got some pretty standard bounce pads. Combined with the acrobatics they're really good fun. Bounce pads is also something that's been part of most platforming games I've worked on before, so I guess it's a bit within my comfort zone as a developer too.

Next are some simple platforms that disappear as you step off them. This is the introduction level to Pedro's world. It seems work well for setting the tone of just showing that this world is different from the rest.

I thought it'd be funny to make use of the spin-dodge maneuver in an unexpected way. So I made these massive screws that you control by spinning on top of them. It also provides a platform for puns such as 'things being screwed up' or suggesting that the player might have a 'screw lose'......

After doing a bit of playtesting it quickly became apparent that people expected to be able to do double wall jumps. I tried adding the feature and it turned out to be really fun! This is this works outside of Pedro's world too, btw.

Last but not least we've got the propeller hat... Because why not. As you spin you travel up with help from the propeller (it's a bit hard to see in the GIF) and as you start to fall down a little umbrella opens and makes you float downwards.

And that's all for this time. What I'm currently working on is dressing up some of the levels and figuring out what the different themes should look like. It's a bit of a struggle switching from the design/programming head space in to the visual, but things are coming out quite nicely so far. I'll probably give you an update on that next time

Until then,
sayonara

Well hello there! How nice of you to stop by. Come, let me show you what's been happening in my world over the last while.

There's been a lot of work going in to the game over the past few months. So much, in fact, that I struggle to remember all the new stuff! But here are some of the big gameplay things I've been playing around with:

Seeing as ya'll loved the bullets bouncing off the frying pan so much, I pondered on how I could expand on that even more and create some more directed gameplay moments with the same essence. So I made some snazzy signs which behave similar to the frying pan, just that they can't be kicked about.

So I've been thinking about what the 'boss battles' should be like. A traditional set up for a boss fight didn't seem quite right, so I've been thinking about it more in terms of "memorable moments" or "punctuation" through the progress of the game. After making the motorcycle chase it seemed to fit as a memorable moment and I wanted to make more similar things. So I made this sky fall section. There'll still be "bosses" that you fight, but the focus in those sections will be more zoomed out than just focusing on the boss interaction on it's own (at least that's the current plan).

I've also added some extra, more casual, gameplay elements. I thought it could be interesting to have an alarm the enemies can trigger, giving you a time window to kill the enemy before he reaches the alarm, kind of thing. I figured using some time pressure is good in a game were you can slow down time. It gives you a practical use of the slow motion.

I also made this sniper enemy. The main point of it is that they can shoot you from off the screen, but you'll see their laser aiming in on you, allowing you to dodge the bullets with some skill and timing.

I also thought it'd be interesting to have some melee enemies that charge at you and have a bit of extra life, creating more time pressure, again.

I guess that's all for this DevLog entry. I still have some things in the backlog to share with you, but that will have to wait until next update.

Oh yeah, just thought I'd mention a little disclaimer: Any of the features you see in this whole DevLog (including other posts beyond this one) might not make it in to the final game. I'm just sharing what I've been playing around with. Just thought it'd be good to mention that in case someone would get disappointed if they don't end up seeing something they thought were cool in the final game. The things I've shown so far that probably won't make it in to the game is the impulse rifle, electricity gun and the drone. Though the core idea of some of these things might still make it in to the game in a different form. I guess that's just the nature of games development.

Until next time!
Buh-bye.

Hello boys and girls!

Did you miss me, because I sure missed you. It's been way too long. But do I have something exciting to tell you. Oh boy, you bet!

Are you ready? Are you sitting down?
Devolver Digital is joining me on the journey to bring MFP to all of you out there! How cool is that?! If you aren't directly familiar with Devolver Digital, I'm sure you've heard of some of the games/series of games they've helped bring to market, such as 'Hotline Miami', 'Shadow Warrior', 'Broforce' and 'Serious Sam' to name a few.

To celebrate this joyous occasion I've prepared a little video for your enjoyment. It's showing what it's currently like playing a level in MFP. Bear in mind, things can and probably will still change a lot between the release of this video and the release of the actual game. But, you know, just wanted to keep ya'll in the loop of what's been going on with the game :)

Topping off all this excitement there is also a brand spanking new Steam page! Why don't you head on over there and add it to your wishlist: Store.steampowered.com

Oh, and in case this is the first time you've come across this game you'd might want to have a look at the trailer that was released just about one year ago (goodness how time flies):
Youtu.be

And in case you're not already, be sure to follow on Twitter/Facebook and/or sign up to the newsletter at Deadtoast.com
Facebook: Facebook.com
Twitter: Twitter.com

I'll update you all on the latest in-game-experiments soonish. Just wanted to let this news sink in first.
Toodles for now!

Happy to hear it! There is currently an option to punch, but it doesn't feel quite right yet. I have been playing with the idea of a sword........ But no promises.. :)

It's hiiiigh tiime... foor.. an update!

Gosh, it's already been two months since last update. Time flies! But just because there hasn't been any updates, doesn't mean there hasn't been any progress.

Up until about two weeks ago I was mainly focusing on making white box levels, which I've found to be quite tricky to share in a DevLog update, hence the lack of updates. But now! Now, now I've got some new exciting things to share with you all.

Let's start with something that I've been pondering for a while: A high-speed motorcycle chase sequence!

It's still in a very early stage (as with most things currently in this game) but I feel like I've proven that the gameplay is really good fun and totally worth investing the time to polish it up.

The next thing that gets me really excited is this new move I've added to the core mechanics of the game. You can now spin in the "local y-axis of the player" to dodge bullets. Check it out:

... Adding this was pretty huge for me since it opened up possibilities of more challenging enemies later on in the game. It also makes you feel like a total bad-ass when pulled off right.

So! After adding the spin-dodge I started sketching out some new heavier looking guards which take a bit more damage and are generally a bit harder to deal with. This is what they currently look like:

The idea is that these guards will be working for whatever will end up being the big bad boss you're fighting in this game. So I thought it could be cool if they could appear in different, more surprising, ways from the other "gangster" enemies. So I started experimenting with having them rappel through glass ceilings:

Another little thing I thought could make things interesting is adding some other technology to these guards arsenal. I made these little "shield projectors" which you have to destroy before being able to shoot the guards. I believe placing these shield projectors in interesting places can create some nice gameplay.

And finally I've done a quick experiment with this "laser-detection-mine" which homes in on you if you're detected.

Aside from all of this there has been quite a lot of little tweaks and things going on in various places. There are some new levels and all in all I think there is currently about 1 hour worth of unedited gameplay (that's me speed-running through it). Some of that will probably be scrapped, but there will definitely be loads more to come.

That is all for now. I can't make any promises about when the next update is coming, as per usual. Just trying to keep my head down and stay busy!

So until next time,
Buh-bye!

It's high time for another update, don't you think?

Despite the lack of posts lately, things are moving on steadily! There's been quite a bit of work on stuff I can't really show in a screenshot or GIF, like implementing a checkpoint system so that you don't have to restart the whole level when you die.

However, there are a few things I can show off, like some of the HUD work that's been going on. Check it:

Here's a snazzy little animation that let's you know when you've picked up a new weapon and what type of weapon it is.

I've also made it so that you can now hold down a key/button to bring up this weapon selector. And while choosing your weapon, time slows down extra much in order to help you plan your next move.

I also did a little bit of work getting the ammo and health HUD to match with the new look. I'm still not sure how final all of this is, but it'll work for now!

After putting quite a bit of work in to lots of smaller things, I've been excited to FINALLY sit down and start focusing on actually making gameplay for the whole big game. I've started white boxing some new levels, like this obligatory roof top level below (can't have an action game without a roof top level):

Also, here's a little bonus GIF of some of the trickery that you can do in the game.

And there you have it! Though there are probably a bunch of stuff I forgot to mention. But mainly I just wanted to let you all know the game is coming along nicely.

I've actually managed to have a little bit of a break too, in the hopes of saving myself from a complete burn out. It's also healthy to try and get a bit of distance from the game from time to time. Luckily enough, when I came back to play the game after the break I really really enjoyed it! And I hope you will too, one day

That's all for now! And again, it could be a while before the next update. I want to get stuck in and super focused on making loads of fun levels!

Until next time,
High fives all around! High five!

Guess who's back. Back again.

It's been a while since my last update. The reason being that I've been doing a lot of work on stuff that isn't too exciting, or even possible, to show. Basically I've been putting a lot of effort in to having some sort of start to the game, with the intention of being able to hand over the game to someone and have them play the game without me explaining anything.

So yes, now there's a system in place for making cutscenes, timing speech bubbles and having on screen button prompts. Still lots of work to be done in those areas, but at least there's something to start with now!

Anyways, so earlier in the week I took a bit of a break from that kind of work and suddenly felt I had to make a mech enemy. It seems to fit with all the other new enemy types and my general idea for the setting of the game. Also it makes for a pretty cool enemy.

Check it out:

In addition to all of this I've been working on little tweaks in the controls of the player and feel like I have managed to iron out some of the major stuff I was doubting before, hopefully making it easier for more people to play the game without limiting the potential for the most skilled players.

And also, here are some screenshots of some of the new areas showing the current state of the button prompts and tutorials.

That's it for now! Again, could be a little while before next update. Let's see.
Until then.
Chip chip ploop.

Just a short update:

This week I don't really have anything to show, since the focus has been on making some cutscene-type tools and there are no exciting cutscenes made... yet. I've been trying to deal with the age old trouble of seamlessly syncing up the animation of two different objects in the scene. I've been thinking of making a video similar to the one showing the level design tools, just to share the ideas I've been playing with. Let me know if this sounds interesting and I might get a video together!

Soon I'll be able to make a (probably temporary) start to the game with some tutorials and stuff followed by some much overdue testing of the actual game with actual people who aren't me or my girlfriend (gosh... scary)!

I guess that's all I've got to say for now.

Until next time.

Toodles!

This week I didn't quite manage to do as much as I'd have liked in the game. There were a fair bit of pondering about how to introduce the various mechanics to the player. The conclusion was that a good place to start is making some speech bubbles. So I had a first stab at getting speech bubbles working in the game! There was a bit of a struggle getting my head around the Unity GUI stuff, but I'm starting to get to grips with it now.

Check it out:

Oh and let's not forget, Pedro is making his first appearance! Much excite!

I'm afraid that's about all I can share from this week! The focus is shifting on to stuff that's hard to capture in GIFs at the moment. So, again, not sure if there'll be a post next week.

Stay tuned to find out! (:
Ta!

This week the focus has been mainly on experimenting with new weapons. But before we get to that, I'd like to show the result of what I started working on last week:

It's a drone-like-thing which roams around until it sees you. When it does it follows you and tries to kill you. BUT! The cool thing is that if you manage to get underneath it you can grab on to it and use it's weapon against other enemies!

Next I started playing around with some new weapons, like this short range impulse-gun-shield-combo. You can use it to launch you a bit further in the game, or vaporize an enemy at close range. Holding down the right mouse button activates a time limited shield which bounces back the enemy bullets. It's pretty good fun!

"I used to be a bad-ass like you, but then I took an explosive arrow to the knee."
This is a "double cross bow" which fires an arrow that you later can explode by pressing the right mouse button. Firing it is silent, so you can use it to set up some traps, if you feel that's how you'd want to tackle the situation.

This is a rifle which is quite powerful and can be shot rapidly. Holding down the right mouse activates the long range mode which allows you to take out unsuspecting fools from a distance.

And lastly, I just got a little idea of making it so you can open a car door in the background to turn it in to cover. Which makes me think there should be more things you can interact with in the environment. Will have a think about that later...

Aaaand, that wraps it up for this week. There could potentially be less updates from now on, since I might shift gear a bit in to actually putting all of this stuff together in to an actual game. Would be cool to release some gameplay videos showing these things in context.

Until next time,
Piece out, bruv!

I can't believe this is DevLog Entry nr. 10 already! It's growing up so fast.

This week quite a bit of time has been spent on "paper design", or just thinking up ideas to make in the future. I've got some ideas for new weapons and ways of combining the various new gameplay elements, which is rather exciting!

However, what I actually managed to create this week is also really rather exciting!

I started by iterating on that Tesla-ball-baddie, making it a bit more challenging and unique from the rest of the enemies. It now "scans" the room from top to bottom, leaving you a clearly defined time limit to shoot it before the beam reaches you.

With the change of the Tesla-ball-baddie-thingie (it should probably have a name...), and 'the way electricity works in this world', it made sense to make this. It's a static wall/roof/floor-mounted electricity-emitter and it turns off for a brief moment when shot. The beam can also be blocked with objects to clear the path. I'm pretty certain this will create some cool gameplay moments when I get around to putting my level-design-hat on.

This next one I get excited about! I did some work on the bullet impact effects and discovered some new tricks in the Unity particle system.

So this got me excited enough to try out this idea which has been growing in the back of my mind for a while. Basically any slow motion game has to have lots of stuff blowing up and things flying all over the place. It also provides some pretty cool gameplay, using those boxes that take a couple of hits before getting torn to pieces.

Lastly here's a little sneak-peak of what's next. The rough idea is that there's a drone-thingie (which is probably trying to kill you, somehow) that you can grab on to and hover around with. Let's see how it turns out!

That's all for now.
Until next time.
Piece out!

Ahoy, once again!

Sorry for not posting anything last week. I was away on a-bit-of-a-kind-of-a-holiday-thingie. But now I'm back! And I've brought GIFs to prove it!

Here's what's been happening this week:

You used to be able to pull off something like the above before, but it required you to use slow motion and align yourself right, and it was very fiddly and now it's better! Now you can pull off this move by simply walking up to an enemy and jump off of them as you would a wall. The result of this move has changed as well. This used to just kill the enemy before, now however, it merely pushes them back, but stuns them for a couple of seconds.

Lasers! Because everyone loves lasers. Right?
I've made some laser detectors that can be used to trigger all kinds of things, like doors ooor...

... Deadly and intimidating turrets! The idea of this turret is that you want to be aiming for the weak-spot behind the shield, and the turret only moves slow enough for you to do that when it's firing.

There's also now an emitter for those Tesla-ball-baddies.

The main motivator for making the laser detectors is this idea, allowing for people who've mastered the acrobatic side of the game to really shine, but still allow people who are yet to master the acrobatic side to not get stuck.

And there you have it! I believe that's all that's new this week. Might have missed something... I should start keeping notes. Hmm...

Until next time!
Toodles!

My goodness... It's been another week already??

I guess it has! So it's high time for another update. Lots of exciting additions have been made to the game!

Here's what's new:

After last weeks implementation of the ability to kick certain items, I wanted to explore that mechanic a bit further. First I made it so that if you kick an item in to the head of an enemy, they get knocked out. Later I figured I might as well make it so you can kick the gibs left behind when shotgunning an enemy at close range. Combining kicking with a splat-attack, you could get something like what you see above

It seemed like a fun idea to be able to have certain metallic objects (like the frying pan above) bounce off the bullets that hit the object. The bullets actually auto-aim to the closest enemies when shot at, even if it's the enemy's the one shooting at it, which can result in some quite funny moments

This next one maybe doesn't get a super high rating on the 'bad-assery-chart', however I'm excited about the possibilities it brings to level design. I've made a simple switch system which makes it easy for me to make things like levers and moving platforms or doors. Still got to make some sort of animation for flipping the switch. You are able to shoot the switch from afar to flip it (but only if you're in the correct direction).

After playing around with that new enemy last week, the ball one with the Tesla-charge-thingie-attack, I wanted to make a weapon the player can use with a similar attack. It's a ranged attack that freezes the enemies while shooting them....

... HOWEVER! The coolest thing with the gun is that you can launch the electric-tip and attach it to a wall or another object. You are then able to shoot from that position.

It kind of made sense to make a switch that is activated with the electric gun. Combine this switch with the ability to "shoot around corners" after launching the electric-tip of your weapon opens up lots of possibilities for cool puzzles, I believe.

... Aaaand once again, that's it for this week!
Until next time. Toodles!

Christmas and New Years is over... After eating loads, relaxing and actually taking time to play some games for once it's time to get productive again!

It's been a great week. I've shifted focus from small polish to playing around with some new ideas and features. I've managed to get three rather exciting additions to the game.

First off: EXPLOSIONS!

Because you can't have an action game with out it...
The explosions are mainly based on this, with a few slight modifications: https://stevencraeynest.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/easy-volumetric-explosion-in-unity3d/
It was a great first glimpse in to shader-programming! I've never touched shader code before, but I managed to add a "pinch point" to the explosion, making it "stretch" slightly in it's origin position, trying to stop it from looking too round

Next up: Kicking!

... With the addition of some experimental UI. After making the explosions I made some explosive canisters. After making the canisters I obviously wanted to be able to launch them in the air and shoot them before they managed to land. So, the most fluid way off achieving this seemed to be kicking

With a bit off skills, you could even pull off this kind of bad-assery:

The last but not least addition: A new enemy!

Since one of your main abilities in this game is the ability to roll, it seemed to make sense to have an enemy based around rolling Now, you might be thinking this is a bit out of place from what you've seen of the rest of the game. However, there seem to be a plan slowly growing in my mind to explain and allow for these sort of things to fit in to the game (In reality, I kind of just want to make cool fun stuff and later vaguely try to explain it with some sort of story)

Here's a bonus close up of the little fella:

That's it for now.
Until next time. Have a good one

Another week has passed and progress has been made! This week I've been wearing my coder hat and trying to wrap my head around my previously written code.

The focus has been on small details in the players movement, animation and poses. I've also experimented with a new ability, namely being able to shoot from cover. Check it out here:

After sorting out the major quirks in the players movement that bugged me I moved on to some enemy work.
I always struggled with how to solve the issue of being able to shoot enemies half way through them spawning from a door. However I now believe I have found a fairly neat solution. The enemies now try to take cover in the door opening if you shoot at them before they're fully spawned.

I've also tweaked and added some new animations for the enemies, trying to make them act a bit less... dumb.
They now react when there is a gunshot happening that they can't see, like so:

Next I might do some work on the actual models of the enemies. I've still got loads to learn in terms of 3D modelling and skinning...

Phhewiiee... What a week!

I've been busy doing levels most of the week. I now have about 10ish levels with a grand total of about 20-30 minutes worth of gameplay! Hurrah! Though most of these levels are still only whiteboxed, and they will probably be iterated further in the future... but still. Hurrah!

Just for the heck of it, here's a GIF from one of the new whiteboxed levels showing a bit of brutal shotgun action.

It's funny how when you work on something for a long time eventually you get blind to the little things you told yourself you'd fix later... That's why I was really happy to hear feedback from ya'll out there! One obvious thing that somehow I had gotten used to seeing was how the arms used to spin around the back of the main character when aiming in 360 in the middle of the air. But no more!

Now the main character spins to face the direction he's aiming in. It's great because it makes you feel even more acrobatic when playing the game!

Hey! Awesome, thanks! I'm looking forward to seeing more myself as well, actually :)

I haven't updated the devlog for a little while since I've been off doing some freelance work and been busy trying to get the word out about this game!

So it feels like it's high time to do a little press re-cap
The first website to pick up on the game was actually my favorite Swedish gaming news site FZ.se:
http://www.fz.se/artiklar/nyheter/20151126/slow-motion-vald-vapenakrobatik-och-bananer-i-svensk-indieaction

Later another Swedish site also picked it up, called GameReactor:
http://www.gamereactor.se/nyheter/293603/Little+Big+Planet-avhopparen+bjuder+pa+bananer/

I also did an interview for lv.80, which you can check out here:
http://80.lv/articles/my-friend-pedro-awesome-slow-motion-platformer-shooter/

And last but not least, Indie Game Magazine also wrote about it! Check it out here:
http://indiegamemag.com/listen-to-the-banana-in-my-friend-pedro-blood-bullets/

It's so nice to having revealed the game and seeing people talk about it, and actually getting excited about it! Somehow it feels more like I'm actually making a proper game now

So, now that the initial "marketing-push" has happened I feel like I can go back to focusing more on making the game again. I've been warming up my game-making-muscles with a bit of level design. It felt really good focusing on gameplay again, after having had the focus on the visuals of the game for so long.

I also made another wall and floor theme which is completely "white-box" to be used for making the initial white-box levels, to stop myself from getting distracted from the flow and functional aspect of the level.

Example of a level built in one go.

Currently I'm approaching level-making in two ways. One way is to just start making the level (usually in the middle of the level) and keep building upon it linearly. This way of making levels usually requires me to really 'get in the zone' mentally, and usually gives the levels a better 'flow' feeling to them.

The other approach is to make levels in different "chunks" or "motifs", as I usually call them. This approach is great for when you want to explore a certain mechanic or "hook". It usually involves trying all the different combinations and abuses of the functionally I'm trying to explore. However, putting all of these "motifs" one after another doesn't always equate to a good level. Therefore I like to keep a little library of different motifs that I can pull in to a level that needs some more gameplay sections. Or just starting from scratch and putting together various motifs which might work well together. Keeping the motifs in groups makes them easy to move around to try different combinations.

Example of different motifs ready to be put together to form a level

Eventually I will probably approach level making in a third manner, namely from a visual or "event" aspect. That is, making pieces of level that maybe wouldn't be so interesting if it was plainly white box, but that focus more on the dressing of that particular moment.

However for now I want to keep the focus more on the "pure gameplay" and be sure there's enough good stuff to cover the whole game, and in the process of doing so invent new mechanics to be used for designing levels.

Not sure how long it will be until my next entry. For a while I will probably just be making levels, and not sure how much of that I should be showing at this point

Let me know if there is anything you would like to know more about, or just any general thoughts you might have!

Until next time! Ta!

I had quite a few people asking to share more info on the Level Creation tools I showed earlier, and who am I to deny anyone that. Check out this video if you're interested in knowing more (hopefully you'll be able to make some sense of my rambles):

In other news I've been putting some work in to my presskit() and am pondering whether or not I should start trying to reach out to various journalists to try and make them aware of the game. I'm also finding out keeping a DevLog and generally trying to draw an audience to what I'm doing here is taking a lot of time. I'm still getting in the swing of things, so hopefully it'll all be a lot smoother down the line.

Until next time! Ta!

Previously on the development of 'My Friend Pedro: Blood Bullets Banans'...

Here's a bit more catching up on what's been going on before the release of the trailer.
I'm using Unity for making the game and was at first a bit disappointed in the level designing tools in Unity... until I discovered I could actually make my own tools! Now, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who thinks "duuh, of course you can make your own tools", but this felt huge for me. Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him how to make tools in unity and he'll forget to eat.. or something like that.

Here's a little visualization of what I made to help speed up the dressing up of the levels in MFP:

It's nothing too fancy, but it saved me a heck of a lot of time.

It basically checks the size of the bounding object and tries to fit as many wall/floor pieces as it can. For the walls it scales the end bits to fit perfectly to the size. The floor doesn't, mainly because I like the keep the size of the gameplay areas a multiple of a carefully chosen comfortable size. Oh and also because I was too lazy to implement that last stretchy bit for the floors.

There's also a nifty keyboard shortcut for adding windows (small or big) in place.

The main motivator for making this tool was to speed up the dressing of the levels, and having an easy way of trying out different visual styles in different areas. Changing the look of a wall or floor is as easy as pressing a button.

Here are some examples of different visual styles:

Next on the agenda is probably a bit more of 'social-media-type-stuff' like setting up a presskit() and such. Hopefully in a few days I can get on with making the actual game again

Until next time. Toodles!

Hello everybody!

Just thought I'd do a quick entry on some of the work I did for the trailer.

Since I wanted a super close up shot of a banana, and wanted a high resolution texture to support this kind of shot, I thought I'd break out my camera and try to snap some close ups of an actual banana. At first I tried to get some shots of the banana, as it were, but it turned out too.. round. It was difficult to capture all the sides as well, since it was so... curved.

Banana 3D-scanning in progress (supervised by my project lead, mr.Pug-Bear)

So what to do?
Well, why not try to UV unwrap the banana, in real life!

It seemed to do the trick and I managed to have that close up shot of the banana in the trailer.
Here's the result in Blender (with added bloodstains):

In other news I also updated my website to draw attention to MFP: BBB. I'll probably update it more properly in the future, but this will do for now. Oh, and I even set up a Newsletter, cuz I'm professional like that.

Check it out!
www.deadtoast.com

My Friend Pedro: Blood Bullets Bananas

'My Friend Pedro: Blood Bullets Bananas' is an action packed 2D platformer with
highly acrobatic elements which draws inspiration from games like Max Payne and
movies like The Matrix. The ambition of the game is for it's players to truly
feel skillful, rather than feeling like you're continuously triggering cool
looking animations. Oh, and it also features a talking banana named Pedro...
But more on that later!

The game is currently in a pre-alpha stage and is aimed to be released
on PC (and probably Mac) eventually. This is a re-imagining of the greatly appreciated
original Flash-game 'My Friend Pedro', which you can play here:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/641215

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GIF Time!

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I'm currently the only one working on this project. What you see is the result of about
8 months of on and off development. A lot of that time has been spent on learning Unity
and general 3D-stuffs (both visually and programming), as I've previously mainly made
2D Flash games (excluding games worked on while being employed by a company).
This is the first time I'm having a go at a DevLog and I'm hoping to be able to post stuff
pretty frequently. I'm currently juggling this project with some occasional contract work
and general procrastination

Anyways, enough words. Time for screenshots!

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Thank you ever so much for taking time to check out this project!