Mudtato
Always Tweaking
The basics are always so much work to get just right.
I ended up spending a fair bit of time revisiting movement and camera related code to improve it, as there were a few things that just didn’t feel right, or were outright wrong.
When it comes to developing a game it’s got to at least feel great, especially when I’m influenced by DKC2, which is at the pinnacle of 2D platformers.
I also realised that my zoom was too low, which meant the player was smaller on the screen, and the screen was showing a lot at a time. I took some screenshots and compared them with Skullmonkeys and DKC2, and updated the zoom to be more in line with them.
It’s a bit more claustrophobic, but means that various values can be scaled down (speed, jump height etc), and it will also make level design easier as not as much screen real estate needs to be filled and decorated.
The image below compares the character heights relative to the screen height.
I’ve also got to work out my image sizes, as I’ve been working with all different resolutions, mostly huge.
I still like it!
I must be having a good time with GameMaker, as I didn’t switch engines or start building another one of my own this April 1st!
On the gamedev front, I’m quite happy with how things are progressing. Here’s a snapshot of my todo list:
[x] Linear moving platforms
[x] circular/diagonal moving platforms
[ ] Slippery platforms
[x] Gamepads
[ ] Prevent getting stuck in objects
[x] Flying enemies
[x] Jump on enemies
[x] Projectiles
[ ] Checkpoints
[x] Buddy pickup/swap
[x] Buddy follow
[x] Parallax
[ ] Particles
[x] Climbing
[ ] Pause/Resume
[x] Conveyors
[x] Springs
[x] Jumping enemies
[x] Portals/Pipes
The gif below shows most of these things, but it’s a bit hard to do a clean run through at the moment, with bugs and whatnot.
Maybe I should start recording some devlogs to really capture the process and progress.
The current artwork is all placeholder. I’ve created more physical assets for some of the environment doodads, but I reorganised my workspace recently and my camera gear is packed away. It’s on the list…
I like it!
I think I could get used to GameMaker. It’s a little bit quirky when it comes to the scripting, but for the most part it’s great.
Today I spent some time on camera and player movement and I’m happy with the results (especially the camera).
It’s Not Even April 1st
…and yet here I am announcing that I’m switching engine again.
Fortunately it’s not back to a custom built one (as tempting as it may be), but this time it’s to GameMaker.
I must have first used it back in 2005 or so and here I am, 18 years later, using it again 
Unity is good, but boy is it overkill for what I want to build. It’s a huge program that takes ages to load and has so many convoluted ways to do things that I thought would be easy. Maybe they are easy once you understand it all, but I just got frustrated.
I always wrote off GameMaker as amateur, and maybe it is a good choice for beginners, but I think it’s also very capable. As a solo developer with so much on my plate already I’m more than happy to use a simpler engine if it can deliver the result that I’m after.
It also supports exporting to consoles, which Godot doesn’t out of the box. And I don’t mind paying. I’m already investing time and money into the product, so I’m not going to be a cheapskate when it comes to the engine.
So I’ve spent a few hours with it today and set up a very basic prototype to see how it works, and I like it.
I may end up using Godot yet, who knows… 
Silicone Tests
So I’ve been pretty distracted over the last month, but have found a little bit of time to test out the silicone. See the nippl…hat below.
This was test to see if I can match the sausage’s clay colour (the clay is really dirty, which is another advantage of using silicone). This was a first attempt, just dropping in a few different colours and it seems to have worked out almost perfectly!
I’ve also got to try some armature related tests before I go any further with actual moulds for the game.
I’m really liking silicone! The colour, texture, strength and feel of it are really much more ideal to work with compared to clay (for animating. I still need to model with clay).
I might end up using it a lot more than I thought I would…
(The “hat” is a great stress toy…)
Toxic Mould
So I made a copy of the sausage model I’d been working with, set it in an A pose and baked it. I then had a go at making a plaster mould of it.
I first filled out around the model with clay and then poured in some plaster. I’m not really up to speed with mixing plaster, so I think it was too watery and the final result was crumbly in parts, but it held together well enough.
I finally got around to pouring in the other half today (a week or so later). This time I made a thicker mix of plaster, but it wasn’t enough and it cracked as it dried and so I had to break it up to remove it.
I also couldn’t remove the model from the other half without breaking it, and breaking a thumb off the model in the process. I’ll have to get some of that demould spray (not the one for the bathroom…)
It was a good test, but not useable in the end. I was actually surprised to see how much detail was retained in the plaster, like fingerprints, so I’m optimistic that future, more careful attempts might work out.
I’ll try out making silicone and resin moulds too, and go with what works best. I couldn’t find any information about making a mould out of resin, so that might fail completely.
Using plaster would be ideal, as it’s the cheapest of the lot.
Anyway, no silicone puppets to play with this week, but I’m a bit closer.