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Just over a week left and I am feeling pretty good about my progress.

The game is playable from start to finish, I still have a handful of high priority assets to make, set up and create the ending cutscene and just an overall polish pass across the board.

All the music and audio effects have been set up, Chibenobi was able to deliver all the tracks very quickly and I used chiptone.io to create most of the audio effects I needed with a bit of tinkering in audacity as well, given the sci-fi nature of the game, more synthetic sounds worked out well.

I also have all the dialogue set up, though I think I'll probably refine the script a bit as I play through the game over and over during testing, I usually handle my scripts this way, with the first draft being a very rough take and then I get a feel for whether it feels good in game.

Originally I had dialogue triggers all over the map that opened up the dialogues as you explored but it felt a bit disruptive and annoying to not really have an indicator that dialogue was going to play, there were also too many dialogue triggers, so sometimes you would fly for a few seconds before a new scene started.

to fix this I added comm beacons to the game, and you have to actually find them and get close to them to trigger dialogue instead.

This means that you can miss some scenes but it feels a lot better to interact with something in the world.

there are still some invisible triggers since it didn't make sense that those scenes played from these beacons but now it feels more balanced between the two.

I also added an on screen UI element to help spot them form a distance.

I also decided to add a bit of texture to the world, I originally wanted to keep everything flat shaded to save time on texturing but I felt like the sense of scale I was going for wasn't coming across well enough, I ended up finding a good compromise with a detail texture that tiles across all the assets.

Overall I am pretty happy with the state of the project, I went into the jam not sure I'd even have something to submit, given how far along I am I'll have almost a whole week to just polish and bugtest.

Gameplay wise the game is fairly simple, you mostly just have to explore and figure out where to go next, I think in hindsight I'd have liked to have a more interesting core mechanic to engage with through the game but I hope people enjoy it for the ambience and vibe I've been building instead.

The last week has been pretty productive, I finished blocking out the level design and plotted out how everything plays out in the story, started to work on assets and found someone to help out with music.

I started working on assets and have been trying to find a balance between asset detail and the feeling of scale needed with this type of environment.

- Intro area, later parts will have a bit more color to them.

Feel like I am getting there, I wanted to try going for something a bit cleaner than my usual jam games and instead of using pixelated textures and wobbly geometry I just stick with some color gradients, the film grain and other post process effects help give it a bit of texture.

The UI has also seen some polish, mostly just in terms of presentation, how it pops up and switches to different HUD elements.

Yazmody and Marygold are 2 of the characters you meet in the game, I've found a style I am happy with where I can get something serviceable out in a decent  amount of time and have it somewhat resemble the style I am trying to go for.

I know they are both pretty far from the original art but don't worry, things will make sense by the end of the game.

I am also very Excited to say that Chibenobi offered to make some music for the game and we have a solid plan for how much music we need and the general vibe.

With about 2 weeks left my plan for the upcoming week will be to finish up the asset work required, that means the player model, more env assets for the later half of the game and finishing up the portraits.

aside from that I also need to set up audio in general, some VFX systems, script all the story event triggers...

I am at the point now where I'm sure I will have something playable from start to finish before the deadline, but there is still a lot of work left.

Hey all, Leo here.

in the last few jams I've been leading Team Hi-lite, usually a fairly large group of community members and some friends making pretty ambitious games that end up consuming all my free time during the jam month.

This year I knew I couldn't participate due to work getting pretty busy and had already decided to not make a game.

...however during the jam stream I got the itch again and started to think about other ways to join without leading a whole team this time around, I was open to helping out other teams that might need some unreal or asset help and started just playing around on a little project idea I had by myself.

I've decided to at least continue on that idea and instead see what I can put together solo with less time as well, I'm not sure I'll finish the game yet but I think I have something scoped out that I believe I can put together.

KÖNIGSHAUS is a kind of Descent and Everspace 2 inspired space sim exploration game.

My plan is to keep the mechanics simple and just focus on exploration and light puzzle solving, no combat either.

Space sim means I don't need any skeletal meshes as well, which are usually the most time consuming elements of asset creation, instead all dialogue will be delivered with 2D portraits.

I don't consider myself good at it but I love drawing and its something I haven't gotten to focus on in the last few years when we had incredible 2D artists on the team.

I've usually gone for very PSX inspired visuals but this time I'm trying something different, it will still be lowpoly and lowres but I have ideas that might save me a lot of time on texturing. 

The only aspect I know I cant really handle on my own is music so I might see if someone can help me out there, it will mostly be some ambient creepy sci-fi stuff, while I wouldn't call it a horror game it will probably be the closest to horror I've done so far.

So far I have most of the required mechanics working in a rough version and a pretty good idea of what the story will be, my next task will be some level and puzzle design, hoping to have it all blocked out in the next week.

I might also share some story ideas next time, I haven't really figured out the specifics but that's also helping me not stress over the project too much, mostly working through vibes atm.

Really impressed with the visual style, not just capturing the "vibe" of the era but its also really clean and consistent, super polished.

Its always fun to see the ways your games break the 4th barrier.

It took me a sec to figure out the password at the start, I started by checking if you hid it somewhere in the files once just typing "Skremplet" didn't work.

Beyond that the scope of this game is also pretty wild!

Am super impressed with the variety of mechanics and the overall polished state, really impressive.

Pushed an update to the rails to hopefully fix that rail grind crash Kyle had, was not able to replicate it so not 100% sure its fixed.

Really liked the old school rpg vibes, took me a bit of time and a few circles around the dungeon to find the last switch at the end that was just in front of the gates lol.

Incredible, loved the vibes and the puppets looked really good, also found the dialogue to be pretty great.

Loved the art, humor and gameplay, great voices as well.

Wow, just incredible, I think I missed a few things but am super impressed with the variety of things happening in the town.

Really fun puzzler, could see the idea expanded with all the skremplets having interesting mechanics.

Love all the new Skremplet art, really fun idea for a game.

Really cool presentation during combat with the animations and the slick UI, overall style is great.

So its the last week of the jam, I always try to get everything done at least a few days before the deadline to give us some time to polish and test the game.
We managed to get the game feature complete in the last few days, the only thing left is a few assets need to be replaced and some audio is still missing.

There is also some polish and nice to have stuff we are still working on that we are hoping to get in but overall the game is "done"

It took me a bit of time to figure out what to do with the jam theme, I didn't have any specific idea that stuck out, I just knew I wanted to make something that focused on what I enjoy about making games, creating environments.

Nightmare Valley is the name we went with, its also something I struggled to decide on but ended up going for something simple.

The game starts with all the Skremplets seemingly frozen, Pastoriche is the only one to wake up and needs to help his friends and figure out what happened.

Overall I feel pretty good about the state of the game, we did cut out one of the bossfights we had planned but the game is already cutting it close on playtime, its a bit open ended so some people might take more time than others but overall during testing we have hit between 20 to 25 minutes.

I would have liked to go into more details on development in the devlog this year but generally I didn't feel like there was much to say, overall things went pretty smoothly and according to plan.

I hope people have fun with the game.

Until next time.

- Leo

The last week has been pretty productive, We've been able to set up most of the mechanics needed and a lot of the assets, the main thing missing at the moment are a few characters which generally take a bit more time as they need to go through rigging and animation after modeling and texturing.

Level work is pretty much done aside from a handful of placeholder assets still in there that need to be replaced, there are a few things left like setting up the secret area where you pick up the DSD sweater but overall the game is playable from start to end, aside from cutscenes and a final bossfight encounter.

Here's a small preview of the level, its a small open map split into a few different areas, players can tackle the areas in different order but will need to clear the 1st 2 before they can access the rest of the map and then need to clear all areas before finishing the game.

This year Vacation T. Hessler has been making the music for our game, he's done a great job so far and I'm excited for everyone to hear it in-game.

The plan is to finish the main loop with everything except the final boss playable in some state with placeholder cutscenes by the end of the weekend and then spend next week replacing placeholders and setting up the bossfight encounter.

Leo here from Team Hi-lite, its that time of the year and we're back with another entry.

I don't think I'll be as active making devlogs as the last few years, part of it down to not having as much free time and some of it not wanting to spoil too much.

that being said I wanted to show just a little bit of what we are working on and talk about what our plan is for the jam.

This year I wanted to make a game that had a strong exploration element, I was feeling a bit nostalgic about the Steel Love game we made a few years ago, it was an open world game which had its charm but it wasn't utilized very well.

This time we are making a platformer with a smaller more tight map but still have a bit of open ended design.

Pastoriche will be the main character and the idea is that you explore a shared dream between the Skremplets who have all been mysteriously frozen.

We are still blocking out the level with placeholder assets and a lot of art assets are still missing

We have about ~75% of the mechanics for the game ready as well, as you free Skremplets more mechanics unlock, making the world feel more alive as you progress.

So far we seem to be on track but there are a handful of things that I'm ready to drop if needed either for getting the game to the 25min time limit or if we run out of time.

I probably wont show off too much due as it would be too spoilery but I'll try to provide weekly updates.

Genuinely amazed at not just the variety of assets and mechanics, but also how polished and well put together the presentation and UI is as well, incredible.

Thanks for the kind words, glad you enjoyed it!

We planned to have more food assets and had the models done but no textures, we ultimately made some changes to the pickup powerups that made them far more rare and had bigger issues to deal with in the end than to texture and add the rest of the food.

Glad someone made a survivor game, really enjoyed it, fun weapons and challenge was tuned just right.

The game has a very strong foundation and you should be proud of what you achieved even if it was incomplete, great game.

This probably going to be the most unique game of the jam, I loved the N64 vibes but struggled a bit with the controls, mostly with the skateboarding momentum and especially in the bossfight, though I eventually got through it and had a really good time.

-Spoilers-

Other than that I feel like maybe the players shouldn't be able to walk through the white walls at the end of disk 1, at first I thought that was intentional and kept falling for a few minutes waiting for something to happen lol.

I had a pretty good time with the game, took me a while to get used to the controls but I found the powerup progression and platforming to be pretty satisfying.

I loved everything about this game, great play on on the Pepsiman formula!

Love RPG submissions, the new designs were all really great and the true ending cracked me up!

1.12 update: added the correct credits for Jambon voice acting and (hopefully) fixed an AI bug where some racers never finished.

Glad you enjoyed it!

WillSoar unlocks after beating the granprix once, though he should remain available  after that, if that isn't the case then the game might be wiping the save data somewhere by accident.

Thanks for letting me know, I haven't been able to replicate the settings bug but will continue to test it.

Glad you enjoyed the game!

1.1 Update:

Updated reaction shots for all characters.
Added missing chicken sandwich ad.
Updated how to play screen with extra hints.
Fixed secret pickup sometimes not giving players alt ship colors.
Music and voice volume adjustments.

1.01 update:
Added options menu to adjust visual settings

Potential fixes to AI winning races after falling through floor.

Added additional playtester to credits

Heads up: There were mixed results using DS4 controllers during playtesting, we didn't manage to get it fixed but not everyone had this issue

Heads up: There were mixed results using DS4 controllers during playtesting, we didn't manage to get it fixed but not everyone had this issue

It's the end of week 4 and time for another devlog!

overall we're doing pretty good, things are progressing smoothly and we even have a playtest ready build out.

All the ship assets are done, but we still need to make alt skins for the upgrade system, its mostly going to be recolors of the current textures so not a ton of work.

All the maps have had a bunch of work done, we've done some env. dressing, set up AI pathing and out of bounds walls, the last level is still not ready but will be worked on in the final week.

We've been focusing on getting all the major mechanics and assets into the game for the last few days, only thing missing at the moment is a bunch of audio work, ending sequences and a bunch of polish.

We're at a point where we don't want to show off too much before release so we're gonna be a bit quiet from here on.

Next devlog will probably be after we've put out the game, covering how I feel about the project overall and stuff we've had to cut.

So it's the end of the 3rd week of the jam, last week I said our focus was on getting the AI in, and add some proper HUD and ship models.

Thankfully we've had a pretty productive week, AI implementation started in the middle of the week and went pretty smoothly, our first iteration was a pretty basic Spline path that the CPU would follow rigidly, this meant that the CPU felt very static and the handling was completely fake, after a rework and iteration on the logic we've made it so that instead the CPU is always chasing a point on the spline path ahead of itself but its subject to the same physics as the player, before if you slammed into an AI it wouldn't budge, since it was on a fixed path, now you can affect the pathing of CPU ships a bit, though they will always get back on track fairly fast.

Asset wise the in-game HUD is more or less finalized, all the assets and the logic behind them is working as intended, position tracking was dependent on having other racers so it had to be implemented once AI was in, there is still some jank regarding completing a lap and pos tracking but I have a few ideas on how to fix it already.

We're also made some progress on 3D assets, so far we have 5/9 ships in game with proper textures, I'm pretty happy with the work so far, each ship has a ton of personality.

There is still a ton of work left, We're starting to implement audio, and there's a few UI elements left, like the end of match scoreboard and the ending screens.

I feel pretty good about our progress in general but the next 2 weeks will be fairly hectic, we wanted to get a playtest build out this weekend but it's gonna have to wait a bit as there are a few key aspects of the build that aren't really in a playtestable state, hopefully we'll get it out during the week but next weekend is more likely.

Next devlog hopefully we'll have all the ships in, wrapped up the remaining UI and started on finishing the gameplay loop with ending screens.

Oh and I said I would show off some gameplay so here it is: 

Hey all, It's the end of the second week and so far, everything has progressing smoothly at Team Hi-lite.

The second and third weeks are always the most stressful, we've started work on mostly everything but nothing is done yet, so it can get a bit overwhelming thinking about how much is left and seeing the list of tasks grow bigger and bigger.

2D art is probably the furthest along, all the characters have concept art, logos and rough vehicle art, we've figured out how we want things to play out story wise for each racer, a lot of UI work has also been completed and is undergoing implementation at the moment, Character select screen is already in game.

We also have animated 2D sequences like the Team Hi-lite logo last week, there's gonna be a few more in the game as well.

We're gonna have ending illustrations for each character and have planned out how they are gonna look but haven't finished any of them yet, we probably won't show them off in the devlogs, gotta keep some things secret until the game is out.

Story will be handled in a pretty different way than we've done before, instead of a linear narrative we're doing arcade mode grand prix where players can play as different characters, and when you beat the campaign you get an ending illustration showing what happens if that character wins, it means that seeing everything the game has to offer will take longer than 30 min but each "run" is far shorter than that.

We originally planned to have a fixed narrative with a specific playable character and more story content but letting players choose who to play ended up being a better fit for this type of game.

I'm still working on how long I want the campaign for each character to be, we currently have 7 playable characters, with 2 unlockable ones, we have 3 tracks with 1 "final" track planned as well, we might have each campaign go through all 4 tracks or just 2 tracks each character so that they feel less repetitive to play through.

We're also thinking about having single race and time trials available for fun, the mechanics are there so it's not a ton of extra work to implement.

We've also started working on 3D art a bit, we have some landscape and foliage assets in game and a few other high priority assets like the modular track mesh and textures.

We have 3 different tracks in the at the moment, there's a 4th final track planned but we haven't started working on it yet.

We still need a bunch of env. art for each map but the main thing missing art wise are the different vehicles, we have some good ideas how they're gonna look but will flesh out the concepts a bit before we start working on the final assets.

We're going for a fairly stylized art style, not quite as cartoony as Death Whisper Diaries but we want the 3D to feel in sync with the 2D art we've been getting.

the CRT and vertex wobble filters have also been implemented, giving the game the old school PSX look we always go for.

Audio is generally handled fairly late in development, we've started collecting some assets and are even doing some voice acting for the announcer and characters, we're still working on the script a bit but have found people willing to contribute their voices.

Mechanics wise there's been a lot of progress, main menu, character select and all vehicle mechanics are in but will all get a bit of iteration later on as polish.

Main missing thing is the AI, our programmer Max has been working on it but we haven't merged it into the main branch yet, there's a few mechanics dependent on the AI so its the next big thing we need to focus on getting in, so we can work on race position tracking, scoring and the grand prix win/lose states.

Overall I feel pretty good about our progress so far, the plan was to have a playable build in the first week and by week 3 I want the game in an "alpha" state, as in all main mechanics are in and you can get from start to finish in some capacity, whether or not we manage to get there depends on how AI implementation goes.

That's it for this week, next week I hope to have some in game footage in video format with the correct HUD and a proper vehicle asset and some AI racers.

Hey all,  its Leo on behalf of Team Hi-lite, last year we made Death Whisper Diaries, and World in Ruin the year before.

Fancy new logo render by Shabello

This year Team Hi-lite has grown a bit, some of the team members couldn't participate full time so we took on some extra help to fill in the gaps, LoaMcLoa is working on concept art alongside Esskaden, Lamsjams is working with Shabello on some of the music, Esper is helping me out with 3D assets and Max is helping as a programmer as both our programmers from last year were unavailable this time.

In some ways, having such a big team adds more pressure on us to make something bigger and better than last year which can be a bit stressing, especially since we decided to make something that's a bit different than our older, more story driven games.

We always try to make something very different from the year before and this time we had an idea for a racing game.

Back with World in Ruin we actually started with an idea for a kart racer but it quickly evolved into an adventure game where the vehicle aspect became just a traversal mechanic.

For our new game we wanted to make something that felt like the original Wipeout games mechanically but we have been looking at lots of racing games from the PS1 and N64 era for inspiration.

BBQ Riderz is a hovercar racing game, which means the driving is inspired by games like Wipeout, F-zero and even other more physics based racing games like Wave Race 64

The general idea is that you get to play as racers inspired by the original characters, but there's a bit of early 2000s edge to their new designs.

The character choice being a villain instead of a protagonist meant that letting players choose from multiple playable characters felt like a better fit this time.

Some character design examples from LoaMcLoa

Last year we felt like it took us too long to get the core mechanics playable and therefore we had less time to work on actual content, it meant that DWD was a fairly short experience that didn't really explore the puzzle mechanics deeply, this year we knew that we needed to focus in getting the core mechanics into a playable state early on so that we had more time to iterate on them and create more playable content.

So far we have most of the core game mechanics set up and have been making internal builds to play through as we add new mechanics.

Its all a bit rough visually atm but the focus has been on mechanics first and making sure that the game feels good to play before we make it look pretty.

We have a ton more concept art and other still WIP stuff that we could show but I'll save it for a more art focused dev log post later down the line.

Next week we will work on the remaining game mechanics, finish the character redesigns we have left and start working on some 3D assets.

Soundtrack is up at Death Whisper Diaries in Death Whisper Diaries (soundcloud.com)

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks, we wanted to add more variety to puzzles but thats how these jams sometimes go, glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it!