Hello again. Well, this is an issue someone in the Steam forums mentioned: jumps were too long so they feel unrealistic. Upon closer examination, I realized it was indeed the case. When Sanja is running and then jumps, it looks like she’s pretty much propelled forward, like she’s wearing a jetpack or something.
So I went back to the player controller and began to tweak some things, and also make some, very deep, changes and adjustments. Basically I did two things: first, I reworked all the jumps so Sanja no longer looks like she’s being pulled forward when she jumps; second, I tried to find many of the sources of glitches and bugs that I could find (as always, if you find a bug, let me know, and if you can include a video, even better).
So, what does this mean?
Well, it means I had to go back and adjust parts of the levels, because shorter jumps means she was unable to reach many of the areas because the majority of jumps are measured so they are challenging (jump right at the edge, etc.).
I also changed the “swing bar” functionality to make it “slightly” easier to pull off the jump. Some people have commented they would expect Sanja to hang from the bars, rather than fall off, when you can’t pull out the jump. I have to admit this is a valid point and I thought about that. The problem I see comes when you are in a chase sequence. Imagine you’re used to she just hanging when you don’t make the jump, and you simply decide to start swinging to gain momentum and then jump off that bar. Well, imagine in a chase sequence you missed the jump because you’re used to doing it the “re-swing” way, then you need to start gaining momentum before you jump off, all while the blob-monster-thing is getting closer. At this point the mechanic caused another death scenario: you had to wait to gain momentum before you continue running away.
Of course I know maybe I am overthinking this too much, because I am aware those used to platformers can easily work around the “hanging” swing bar, so if you think the “hanging” swing bar is better than the “falling-off” swing bar, let me know in the commnents, forum, whatever, so I can add that. Besides, This other type of swing bar can allow for interesting gameplay as well, like this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH6L0WMqaaw
And a small but interesting detail, I am adding DOF to the camera. Someone had already suggested this some time ago, but I never actually did it until now. Right now it’s very subtle, but I am testing to see if it should be stronger.
As always, if you like what you see, join the mailing list and please buy The Nightmare from Beyond on Steam or Itch.io