This will be the last development update (at least until after the beta launches) as I’ve added the last of the remaining features planned for the beta and am hard at work swapping out all placeholder visuals with final assets. This work doesn’t make for very entertaining updates (this old rock is now a new rock!) and I’d like to keep any more additions as a surprise for players checking out the beta and early access release. I’ll still be posting snippets in the Discord server but won’t be writing up these formal updates as the time is better spent directly working on the game at this point now that the design is solid and there won't be new mechanics to share. With that out of the way, let’s get into all of the new stuff that’s been added over the last two months!
New Visuals
The majority of my time was spent figuring out the final look of the game. It's super important to define visual standards for each asset before making loads of them and realizing that their styles don't match. I'm really happy with the chunky, semi stylized visual language that I landed on and am finally swapping out all of the ugly placeholder meshes that have been visible for far too long!
Here's a look at some of the new assets which will set the tone for all future visual work! My goal was to ensure a clean read (as most of the time there is a lot going on with enemies and projectiles) while having an uplifting and vibrant color palette. It was important to find a nice balance of detail and clarity as well as just figuring out shapes and styles that complimented each other- it took a lot of iterations but I'm really happy with where it ended up.
- Weapon Model Preview
While this is untextured, I think it gives a good idea of how the weapons will look in the game- clean, chunky and semi stylized.
- New Trees
- New Cliffs
- New Materials
New sand + ocean foam materials
Improved snow and ice materials
- Honorable Mentions
Here are a few islands that didn't make the final cut in terms of style or design but I still think are worth showing!
As a final bonus point, all cliffs were created procedurally which allowed me to generate many detailed assets with a consistent style and make broad changes without having to redo lots of work.
Level Design
In addition to figuring out the final visuals this month, I also needed to decide on many factors that go into how an island is actually designed: how it plays, what kind of spaces work, what scales feel good / bad and so on.
I made many many test islands: some vast and detailed, others small and minimal. In the end, while the vast detailed islands looked better in screenshots, they weren't as fun to actually play compared to the more open and focused arena style islands.
Since you only spend a minute or two on each island, having to navigate a huge island with enemies potentially being far away from one another quickly became tedious: this is a fast paced game and restarting runs happens frequently. The more focused open island layouts not only allow you to take everything in at once (enemies, totems, destructible rocks etc.) but also allow you to move around them more freely, making a fluid route as you dodge enemy attacks.
Biome Changes
As the visual style was decided on this month, I quickly realized that all of the core biomes need to be taken into consideration to ensure that the processes for one biome translated well over to another. In addition to this, only having to clear 3 biomes to get a victory felt a bit short (even though you can loop), so I am now including the Desert biome in the beta meaning players will need to clear the Tropical, Arctic, Desert and Volcanic biomes to secure a victory.
Many of the desert specific enemies won't be added until later, but ensuring that the framework is down now means that the length of each run feels right. Any future biomes will be added as optional / random choices and as post loop content.
Totems
Totems previously all looked identical at a distance and were relatively confusing. I wanted to make each totem type more apparent with a distinct color as well as add a few new types to increase variation. Here are the current totem types in the game.
- Health Totem: 50% chance to double max health, 50% chance to halve max health
- Crystal Totem: Gain crystals but lose 33% of your health
- Loot Totem: Get a random pickup but lose 33% of your health
- Gold Totem: Get a random legendary pickup but lose 90% of your health
- Glass Totem: Get a random pickup (if not destroyed- any damage source destroys this totem)
- Fuse Totem: Get a random pickup (if interacted with before the fuse expires)
- Greed Totem: Get a random greed perk
- Chance Totem: Lose 10% of your health for a 25% chance to get a random pickup
- Gamble Totem: Costs crystals for a 25% chance to get a random pickup
- Reroll Totem: Costs crystals to reroll all pickups on the current island
- Random Totem: Randomize your entire inventory (explodes after 1 use)
- Life Totem: 33% chance to fully heal, 66% chance to take a small amount of damage
- Perk Totem: Takes one of your perks and has a 66% chance to increase the level and a 33% chance to consume it
More totem types will be added in the future such as Contract Totems which give you a mini objective to complete over a few islands for extra rewards.
Totems are guaranteed to spawn in shops with a lot of potential strategies opening up for example if moving back and forth between Life and Chance totems (if both happen to spawn on the same island). To prevent such situations breaking the game, each totem has a chance to explode after using it.
New Enemies
- Grenade Crab
Lobbing a slow but highly damaging grenade at players, it's best to keep your distance when facing these guys!
- Slammer Crab
This Elite variant attacks only via ground slams so choose your moments to dodge wisely!
Even More Perks
As I was fixing bugs, a few new perks slipped in...
- Double Vision: Chance to get an additional reward chest after clearing each island
- Crystal Asteroids: Chance for asteroids containing bonus loot to spawn on each island
- Care Package: Get additional reward chests after clearing every 4th island
- Big Chests: Reward chests have more options to choose from
- Shockwave: Reloading damages all visible enemies
Other Stuff
- Added Field Of View Slider
A heavily requested feature across most games today, you can now change your FOV from a minimum of 60 to a maximum of 110.
Low FOV (60)
Default FOV (80)
High FOV (110)
- Enemy Collision Enemies now have movement collision (meaning you can't dash through flying skulls as seen in the last update!). I tested being able to ride on top of big enemies but it led to some broken situations- maybe I'll revisit this in the future.
- New Elimination Hitmarker
- Enemy Attack Improvements I've tweaked many enemy attacks that felt unfair such as launch attacks happening very close to the player, not giving them enough time to react. Attack telegraph visuals have also been overhauled, matching the tint of the enemy and timing of the attack. Enemies can now also attack from multiple locations at the same time (such as skulls firing a stream of projectiles from both eyes at once).
- Foliage Wind
Added wind logic to all foliage assets: it's subtle but really breathes life into each island.
- Updated Crab Materials
The crab materials and skins are now more stylized to match the final look of the game. This just means more clean reads and less noisy details that no longer fit in.
- Challenge Crystal Improvements Challenge crystals now spawn a protected pickup for each teammate when playing multiplayer rather than just one for the damaging player.
- Improved Visibility
When getting close to walls or your crab, you'll now be able to see through objects instead of having them frustratingly block your view.
- Loot Visibility Improvements Any non chest loot that spawns is now clearly marked with a location UI. This reduces situations where players would accidentally jump into a portal without first collecting some loot dropped by a challenge crystal or an enemy due to a perk.
- Improved Inventory UI Prompts
- Balancing And Adjustments Some outdated perk info was being discussed in the Crab Champions Discord server and it reminded me to mention that there are constant balance changes being made to weapons, mods and perks. It feels a bit fruitless to post these changes in detail here as the game is not out yet but expect detailed patch notes during the beta and beyond!
Beta Checklist
I wanted to clarify what work remains before the beta can launch as it's a common question on Discord. As you'll see, it's almost entirely swapping out placeholder assets with new ones and cleaning up + improving content that looks messy or broken such as many of the animations and FX that are currently in the game. The plan is to power through these and release the beta immediately after as there won't be trailers or other media needed to be created for it. That said, it's still a chunk of work so don't expect a beta to drop until the end of the year!
- Finish Remaining Environments Now that I've established the visual styles for each of the biomes and built a selection of islands that work well with the gameplay, I need to build out more islands so that there is enough variation per biome. I'll be making the bare minimum amount of islands (roughly 15 islands per biome) to start off the beta but many more will be added over time.
- Improve + Replace Animations As you could probably tell from some of the clips posted today, the animation side of things needs more refinement (make weapon recoil affect the crab properly, fix jarring transitions etc.).
- Make Final Weapon Models + Sounds Each weapon needs a unique finalized mesh and matching sounds as both of these elements have a huge impact on how satisfying it is to play the game.
- Make Final Enemy Models + Sounds + Animations Final versions of each of the non-crab enemy archetypes seen in previous updates have to be created. Some enemies (especially the Slugs) have been using very basic placeholder meshes for a long time and badly need new visuals. Keep in mind that the enemies are already fully designed: their behavior and attack patterns are all done, they just need new visuals.
- Make Final Sounds + Music Of course a huge part of the game are the sound effects and soundtrack. While I've been focused mainly on code and visuals over the last few months, I'm now getting back to finishing the soundtrack and making unique sounds effects for any elements that need it (I had been repurposing the same small set of sounds from the prototype for SO many different things so it'll be great to replace these with proper unique sounds).
That marks the end of the TWENTIETH development update- a crazy milestone that I never thought would be a thing. Developing a game solo is a huge undertaking and my deepest respect goes to all the devs out there getting projects finished!
With all that said, thanks for reading this update and for being patient while the game gets finished, it is hugely appreciated!
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