Summary
Terror of Hemasaurus has been moving forward at a decent pace despite me currently prioritizing the console ports of my previous release, Super Blood Hockey. My current focus with this game is developing all possible core mechanics as well as prototyping each basic element of the game (e.g. buildings, civilians, enemies, vehicles, etc.). Once an element is established and interacts with the other elements in fun ways, I will then expand the variety. I think it can be useful from a developer’s perspective to take each game element and consider making meaningful interactions between it and every other element. To me, this makes a game feel alive.
Expanding Building Variety + Collapse Behaviors
I have managed to come up with a system for tweaking the physics of the standard residential building to scale effectively based on its height, while still maintaining consistent collapse behavior. One struggle with developing the game so far is maintaining proper physics properties for each possible size of building so that they collapse and break apart in satisfying ways. If the physics properties are not properly set they can develop bad collapse behaviors, such as tipping over very easily (especially if they are tall!). I am still working on developing a system that allows for adjustable width of residential buildings, which has proved to be a bit tricky.
Since I can now generate a variety of building heights, I decided to expand the pixel art tilesets a bit to include variety in color and appearance. I am embracing a colorful pixel art style over darker and more muted colors. I think this enhances the existing contrast between the cuteness and the violence.
I am also working on a system to convert fully drawn building sprites directly into physics objects arranged in a similar manner to the residential buildings. This will allow me to more easily incorporate and develop buildings which have unique shapes and layouts. I have already implemented a portion of the system and have developed a single special building: Sludge Burger! I will develop more special buildings, such as schools, churches, police stations, fire stations, etc.
Expanding Core Mechanics
I have been adding more elements of “Juice” to the game to help convey the weight of Hemasaurus. I want him to control in such a way that is responsive, but also feel weighty. On the physics simulation side of things, Hemasaurus is rather agile. Therefore, I am trying to communicate his weight more through visual effects and the impact he has on his environment. You will now notice that Hemasaurus causes damage and alerts civilians of his presence simply by jumping and climbing on structures.
Civilians can now survive short falls. This holds true even if they are on fire! If they don’t impact with too much velocity they can get up and run for their lives. When they are on fire, they will run a bit faster and have sped up animations.
Civilians can now collide with multiple other civilians and enemies when thrown. This makes for some really cool combo situations. I have been pondering how I could use the potential for these combos to create some fun and interesting situations.
If you manage to pick up a civilian that is on fire, you can throw him like a makeshift Human-Molotov Cocktail! Because why not? I have been having a lot of fun playing around with this one! :D
Hemasaurus can now save people from falling to their death by catching them out of mid air! Or not...
One thing that I like to focus on a developer is making game elements have a wide variety of interactions with other game elements. Here, you can see that sometimes the police can do more harm than good! Sometimes they shoot innocent bystanders and even occasionally themselves! Making glancing shots ricochet off of Hemasaurus leads to a bunch of really fun interactions.
If you would like to support the game, please consider adding it to your Wishlist. Not only will you be notified of the game’s launch (with discount) but it helps show the almighty Steam Algorithm that people are interested! This can be a huge help to a small developer such as myself.
As always, if you have ideas or suggestions, please do not hesitate to share them with me.
Loren