{"author_name":"fprawn","cat":"LD #35","comments":[],"epoch":1461103620,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"6103","p_author":"fprawn","p_authorkey":"11661","p_urlkey":"41543","p_title":"Tentatively Titled: Tentacle Terroir Terror!","p_cat":"LD #35","p_event":"LD35","p_time":"1461103620","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"11661","us_name":"fprawn","us_username":"fprawn","event_start":"1460678400","event_key":"33","event_name":"LD35"},"text":"

 <\/p>\n

\"TTT_clip\"<\/p>\n

Now that I’ve had some time to rest, I hope to be able to write coherently about the dev process for TT:TTT!<\/p>\n

I’m happy to say that the release is a complete experience. The gameplay is simple, and many of the elements are simpler than I would like (the shooting in particular), but the meat of the game is the tree\/weed\/tentacle monster and that came out as well as I had hoped.<\/p>\n

The first piece I tackled was the tentacle mesh. It’s simple enough, each node is a conic-section. The base of each node is a circle of vertices, with a given radius, orthogonal to it’s length, and the top is a circle orthogonal to the next node’s length. Or more simply, it’s made up of increasingly smaller circles pointed at random angles connected together with straight sides. The final node gets a point, and it’s done.<\/p>\n

Creating a tentacle in real time is a simple matter of traversing the node list and increasing the size and length of each over time. When the length exceeds a certain value, a new node is created with a random orientation and zero length and radius. Only the final node in any tree has it’s length increased, but their widths continue to increase always. Over time it becomes a big lump of a monster.<\/p>\n

I finished them off by adding a sine wave input to the radius to create the pulsing effect, and colored them based on the node size.<\/p>\n

I spent all of Sunday unsuccessfully trying to get the fallen pieces to be a connected rigidbody chain, but couldn’t get it to work out well. Sunday night I ditched that effort, and had each node break off separately. I should have let go of the chain physics earlier, because it left too little time to complete the gameplay.<\/p>\n

The biggest missing piece is effects, and it’s hard to tell when the gun is firing and what if anything it’s hitting. I’m using a new renderer in my engine and my old particle effects system doesn’t work with it yet. I had been trying to think of ways to convey hits and firing better, but ran out of time and ended up making a mad sprint just getting the gameplay rules and minimal UI in place.<\/p>\n

I hope those that play it enjoy the experience. I would consider this my most fun game jam game yet, and am seriously considering further work on it.<\/p>\n

Link: Tentatively Titled: Tentacle Terroir Terror!<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks for checking it out!<\/p>","time":"April 19th, 2016 5:07 pm","title":"Tentatively Titled: Tentacle Terroir Terror!"}