...17 months later...
It's been over a year since Dot Hop 1.0 launched! I'm very happy to finally be releasing 1.2! Expect more releases more quickly until we hit 2.0.
I've categorized this as a minor update, because on the surface not much has changed. BUT! The last year of game dev across a few different projects has improved my Godot architecture skills, and I spent much of the last few months gutting and refactoring Dot Hop's core abstractions.
But enough nerd speak! If you want more nitty-gritty, I've written a few Dot-Hop-focused devlogs on my blog recently, and the docs site has a changelog full of commits. (Did you know Dot Hop is open source? The repo is on github!)
Them Changes
So what has changed for the players? First, some subtle things:
Better puzzle zoom. The puzzles now appear larger, and dynamically sized. This is due entirely to a new camera (I pulled in PhantomCamera and used 'follow-group' on the Dots).
Floaty particle bits. Theme-based particles to keep you company while you stare at the grid.
Active 'next-dot' animations. A quick and dirty animation to grow the next-dots and shrink the last-dot. Could use more juice and nuance - really just a proof-of-concept and a step toward making the core mechanic more readable.
Puzzle 'Shuffle'. You can now re-randomize the layout of a puzzle with a tap. (Note this often lands on the same layout... more to come on this in future updates).
Fall Pumpkin dots. The colorful leaves were fairly difficult to read, so here's a pumpkin instead.
A new 'All The Dots' theme. A fun theme that is tough to read, but makes for some fun looking screenshots.
Click or drag to move. You can now drag the mouse over sequential dots to hop along - the new dots get queued and hopped-to as expected. (Implemented to support mobile, but hey, you can play with the mouse now!)
Experimental?
Some bigger, experimental things!
The Gym. A place to work-out your puzzle muscles! Intended to make it easy to add experimental mechanics and game modes - for now, enjoy the 'Random' and 'Treadmill' modes.
The Puzzle Viewer. An alternate UI for viewing the puzzles and some of the calculated stats associated. We'll see more stats and player metrics here soon.
Some Extras
There are also a handful of extra levels tossed into a new world - some are two-hopper puzzles from Dot Hop's original game jam implementation, and the last one is by far harder than all the other puzzles in the game. It was created by my buddy Cameron while hacking on a Dot Hop puzzle generator - he shared it as an 'impossible' puzzle, but of course yours truly solved it after a manic ~30 mins of hopping on the snow theme. (Note: you can change the theme at any time via the pause menu!)
Thanks y'all!
More to come soon! Enjoy the release!
P.S. Dot Hop is in beta on both Android and iOS! Reach out if you want to check it out.