Devlog #8 - Updated Game Demo

Hello hello!

This is team Octogroup, here with our 8th devlog for Gimme a Hand! This devlog is special, not only because it’s our 8th (woah, octopus reference), but also because it’s showing the build we used in a playtest with some folks from Ubisoft Toronto. Our goals for this sprint were to tailor the User Experience to better fit our vision for the game; this includes making major level design updates, adding more player feedback for our main mechanics, and making our game look and sound great, to get players in the mood for some puzzles!

Level Design Updates

From our previous iteration, we’ve updated the entire level design! Keeping the same layout, some of the changes made to the current level can be seen below:

• Made all rooms smaller and more compact
• Refined puzzle metrics
• Shortened objectives
• Fixed water overlapping issue

• Planning on making more puzzles that adhere to the allotted showcase time of 5:00 minutes

Visual Updates

• Adjusted the colours of level elements to make it easier to tell what’s interactable
  • (e.g., yellow = anchorable surface)
• Created and implemented UI assets
  • Made new sprites for showing distance from a tentacle to an anchorable surface (pulsing circles)
  • Updated controller join sprites - now they’ve got a cool, stylish new look!
  • Designed layout for controls screen, and made assets for buttons & windows
  • Created tentacle sprites to show what action each player is doing in real-time

• The camera for Monkey bars now follows a Dolly track, making it easier for players to traverse the monkey bars.

Programming Updates

• Many, many bug fixes
• Now the gamepad rumbles once instead of persistently, and rumbles only when a tentacle is pulling.
• Added a pulsing sphere to the tentacle end when the player is pulling
• Implemented Controls Screen using newly created UI assets (2 versions: Start Menu Controls Menu AND In-Game Controls Menu)
• Increased the Tentacle Hand grabbing radius; 2.5 -> 4 
  • Intended to allow grabbing to be more forgiving
• Reworked Grabbing logic for both anchorable surfaces and grabbable objects
  • Anchorable Surfaces: Tentacle hand will now ‘snap’ onto these surfaces when players grab them
  • Grabbable Objects: Objects will now ‘snap’ into the tentacle hand when players grab them

Audio Updates

We’ve made significant improvements in refining the audio landscape, introducing both playful ambiance and narrative-driven cues that enrich the overall experience.

The start menu theme has been completely revamped to reflect the game’s core spirit: fun, lighthearted chaos. Our goal was to reduce tension and invite players into a non-competitive, joy-driven co-op experience. The track uses minimal but layered instrumentation, featuring:

• Ukelele-style strings and marimba, which evoke tropical and underwater associations
• “Underwater” acoustic treatment using:
  • High reverb room size and wet mix to simulate spatial diffusion
  • Low-pass filter to dampen high Hz, mimicking how sound behaves underwater
  • Subtle wave and bubble SFX layers in the background to reinforce the aquatic mood

This sets the tone not only musically but emotionally, where players are reminded from the start that this is a game meant to be enjoyed freely.

On-Land (2nd room) music has been updated as well. To contrast the silly on-screen antics with an elegant sonic atmosphere, we composed a track inspired by indoor liminal spaces, such as closed shopping malls and indoor amusement parks after hours. This track features:

• Lofi, echoing jazz and samba motifs
• Light use of speaker cabinet EQ filtering and long tail reverb to emulate the feel of music playing in an empty tiled room

This ironic juxtaposition with Tickles flopping around and the soothing elevator music creates an intentionally humorous dissonance. Along with the new music, we also added one key announcement that plays at the start of the on-land(2nd room) section: “Good evening, staff, it is now 10 pm. Guests have exited the premises, and we are officially closed for the night. As always, please ensure all security doors are locked, exhibit access points are sealed, and any throwable objects are removed from the enclosure. Thank you, and have a good night.”

Lastly, we’ve also added more variations to different sound effects to add realism and reduce the feeling of repetitiveness when spamming buttons. 

Shader Updates

• Made shadows less dark on cel shaded materials.
• Added an octopus trail shader, this shader can be used to draw on any texture with a mesh that has its uv properly unwrapped. 

• Reused the octopus trail shader to create markers that the players can draw with.

Next steps

Thank you for following the development of Gimme a Hand so far!