Hi again folks, Andrew here with the sixth devlog on the game Typr, my brand new project.
For information on what Typr is you can check out the main page here on itch.io, it gives a good representation of what I'm trying to build and hopefully those extravagant devlogs will keep you around!
Links
Discord Server for Active Development: https://discord.gg/nArn9Mk
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/altraydigital/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AltRayDigital
Email: altraydigital@gmail.com
Preface
I'm so glad I've reached the stage where the changes I make to the game are so spread around that I require a full video of gameplay to feature it. It's a lot easier and faster than doing gifs of specific mechanics. This week has been all about over-all improvements as well as full reworks to existing mechanics. Here's the new gameplay video. P.S.: The sound for correct words still sucks and I want to fix it.
Main Features
- Reworked time mechcanic
- Reworked Gibbrsh mode text
- Worked on overall sound
- Added visual improvements and animations
Time Mechanic
I set the time mechanic in place from the start and until recently wanted it to remain the same even for release. However, after playtesting it for quite a bit I've grown to hate the fact that you gained time with each correct word you typed in. It essentially meant that if you're a very fast typer, you wouldn't actually measure how fast you can type but simply prolong the game to infinity, especially in classic mode where sentences are considerably easier to type than in gibbrsh.
So in the end I changed the mechanic to no longer be dynamic but instead have a fixed amount of time that I can set for both classic and gibbrsh and the game will no longer reward the player with time when he completes words. This way, the player can truly test how fast they can type in a stable environment.
Gibbrsh Mode
With all the work on sound and animation, gibbrsh mode felt like it was left behind with its own structure of one word per screen change. While I loved the fact that the mode had its own unique thing compared to classic, it definitely ruined a few of my plans when it came to sound design and animation. So in the end I decided to transform gibbrsh mode's main mechanic to resemble classic mode more. It now simply generates a paragraph similar to classic but instead it contains words written with random letters.
The result is a more fast paced gameplay with a bit more thought put in from the player since he can now preemptively type the next word in the paragraph instead of seeing a whole new screen with a whole new word every time he finishes typing one.
Sound
A few new additions to sound including music for the main menu that fits the over all theme of the game as well as a new sound for when the player completes a word. Somehow I still don't like it, I might have to change it by release but I'm not entirely sure.
I've also played around with the volume of the sounds and halved it on all sound effects. Apart from that, I had planned to include sounds for whenever you hit a combo mark on the combo bar but in the end I thought it would only bloat the sounds since a relatively fast typer will hear a lot of sound while he plays the game.
Animations and Visuals
Definitely proud of the animation work over all, it helps give the game that special "pop". I've added an outline to all the important text in the game to help readability on all kinds of differently colored backgrounds. Not all text uses the outline and I'd like to keep it like that since the balance between the two kinds of text offers a nice visual presentation.
Apart from the outline, I've added floating text for whenever you complete a word, this way the player can see the amount of score that he earns with each word.
I've also finally added the combo bar that shows the current combo modifier. Every time the player earns points they get multiplied by the amount shown on the combo bar. I've also played around with the color schemes of these animations, trying different things to see how they look in the end.
Conclusion
Well, week 7 is finished and I'm gearing up for release sooner than I thought! Pretty much every logical piece of the game is in place and all I have left right now is tweaking a few things here and there. Unfortunately I've had to cut the fun animation side of the game where the screen would do different kind of effects to make the text harder to read, it simply is too much work to implement at my current pace. A playable demo will soon be available and afterwards, the grand release!
Thank you for reading and see you next time,
Andrew