Savanna Sam is a 3D action game you can play in your browser! Take over the controls of Sam’s trusty biplane and help him on his dangerous journey. Make sure Sam reaches his destination and can make his delivery!
The game supports keyboard controls, gamepad controls and touch controls!
The gameplay of Savanna Sam is similar to console classic Star Fox, replacing the shooting with even more barrel rolls!
Do you have what it takes to make the trip through the Savanna? Give it a try:
Well, the day has come! I have just released the playable demo for Savanna Sam on itch.io!
The first post in this thread is from February 2024, and now, over a year of working on this game later, I’m finally at a point where I’m comfortable with sharing this game with all of itch.io.
I’m looking forward to see what people think of the game! See you there!
One last minute addition to Savanna Sam: a dedicated tutorial level!
Until now, the game already would show you what controls you need in order to play the game. However, the tutorial level gives a little bit more space to test out the controls before throwing you into the deep end.
Neat detail: The tutorial level is the first “endless” level I have added to the game.
All story levels up until now have been built in the editor and will always follow the same path. However, since I don’t know how many attempts a player needs before they successfully collect the respective item, I have added a mechanic where a level will just dynamically repeat certain chunks and objects.
Right now, this technique is only being used in the tutorial.
But it opens up the possibility of adding actual endless arcade levels, where the player doesn’t have to reach the end of the level but try to survive as long as possible, with the level getting harder and harder the longer it continues.
That will be considerably more work on top of this, though. For now, I’m happy with my tutorial level.
Sam is one step closer to being released on the Google Play Store!
There are a couple of hurdles you have to take if you want to release a game to the Play Store. In one of them, Google requires that your game has been tested for 14 days by at least 12 people.
The test version of the game is published to the testers through Google Play as well, that way Google can check how many testers have the game installed on their devices.
Thanks to the awesome help of my friends and coworkers, I was able to clear that goal today and apply for production:
I hope Google will be gracious with the game on the homestretch. ;-)
For the longest time, I didn’t plan on using any real time lighting in the game, let alone let the objects cast shadows.
Instead, I wanted to push the comic look of the game by painting any shading and shadows into the texture maps. Also, this was meant to improve the performance of the game by keeping the graphics calculations to a minimum.
The problem was: Having no shadows made it significantly more difficult to estimate Sam’s distance to any of the surrounding objects. Due to constantly testing the game, I myself got used to this at some point. But recently, several friends who tried the game reported that they often didn’t know whether they had passed an obstacle or not.
One of them suggested that having Sam and the obstacles in the game cast shadows could make recognizing where Sam was in relation to other objects much easier.
So, I bit the bullet and implemented real-time lighting and shadows into the game. This involved more than just flipping a switch in the code:
I think it was worth it: I feel that not only does the game look much nicer than before, the shadows do help with navigating the levels. And as far as I can tell, I kept the performance hit to a minimum.
You can see a video of the new graphics in action for free here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/127234056
The most recent cutscene I have drawn for Savanna Sam is where we meet the main antagonist of the story for the first time: The Teddy Bear King!
I like how different the location looks to anything that the player has seen in the game up to this point. And I like the contrast between the dark volcano and the whimsical sounding “Teddy Bear King”.
You can see the entire cutscene on my Patreon page!
One more thing that is neat about releasing a game on Steam: There’s a chance that it will run on the Steam Deck, as well!
I’m using Electron to bundle the Savanna Sam web game as an EXE file for Windows. I then upload those to Steam.
At first, I assumed that I had to configure Electron to create a Linux build of the game on top of that in order to run on the Steam Deck, since the device is running Valve’s own Linux distribution.
I was so happy when we gave the existing Windows version a go on a collegue’s Steam Deck just on a whim and it simply ran out of the box!
Apparently, the Windows emulation on the Steam Deck is really good! No further preparation or tinkering on my side was needed to run Savanna Sam on there with no apparent issues.
I haven’t posted much in the past weeks, but I was still quite busy. I plan to (finally!) release the demo for Savanna Sam in the coming weeks, which means I’m currently occupied with, among other things, setting up all the shop pages for the game.
One of those is the itch.io page for Savanna Sam, which is coming together bit by bit. However, there are more places I want the game to be available, one of them is… Steam!
The shop page for Savanna Sam on Steam went online recently.
Check it out:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3038250/Savanna_Sam/
You can already follow and whishlist the game on Steam. The Steam-Version of the game is integrated with the Steam API and will feature Steam achievements!
I’m quite excited to see my game have a presence on one of the largest gaming online marketplace in the world. Let’s see if it will have any effect. ;-)
And another element of the game is seeing an overhaul: the screen that appears after you have finished a level!
Before, this was what the player would see when they made it through a stage:
I have reworked this entire screen and added a new design and more informations that are shown to the player.
Along these changes I have added a star rating that shows the player how well they did in the level.
On top of that, Sam himself is joining you in the level end screen and reacts to your performance. Sam has a couple of animations ranging from disappointment…
…to approval!
Trying to get three stars on all levels gives the levels some replayability, and seeing Sam cheer you on gives you some nice additional motivation!
This was somewhat spoiled in my last post, but there is a new, very visible feature in the game: The overworld graphics have been overhauled!
So, Sam is not traversing a white “work in progress” void anymore:
Instead, Sam is now flying through an actual Savanna, with 3D objects hinting at the respective themes of the levels:
This is another step that makes the game feel that much closer to not being a prototype anymore.
I have reworked an aspect of the game that isn’t very spectacular at first glance, but pretty important: The input hints, teaching new players how to play the game.
Naturally, I want to communicate very clearly and in an easily understandable way what controls the player needs to use in order to play the game. Also, I originally wanted to hint at the fact that there are several different input devices that the player may use, like mouse and keyboard, gamepad or touchscreen.
What I came up with was this:
What you’re looking at here is a modal window that is displayed on top of the game.
I thought I was in pretty good shape with these, but further play tests with friends an colleagues have shown what probably should have been pretty obvious from the start: These tutorial screens are quite awful :-P
The result was that in most cases, players didn’t look or even read what the tutorial screen showed them. Instead, they perceived the screen as an intrusion, trying to remove it as quickly as possible, sometimes while ignoring the hints completely.
So I reworked the input hints, making them much simpler and more intuitive:
Again, it seems obvious in hindsight ;-) Hopefully, this will work better in the next playtest.
Happy new year, everybody!
Good news, Sam is not dead yet! Due to other obligations, I had to put the Savanna Sam project on hold for a while, which is why there were no updates recently. However, I now have time to tinker on my little flying game once more, so the hiatus is over!
One of the things I was busy with recently was building a custom website for Savanna Sam! Next to itch.io and Newgrounds, this is meant to be Sam’s home on in the internet.
To get back into the groove with working on the game itself, I decided to do some housekeeping and adjust the UI design in the game to the design of the website. I wasn’t too happy with the grey buttons anyways, so this was a nice opportunity to give the buttons and UI elements an overhaul.
I think the result is an improvement and fits the atmosphere of the game nicely.
In my last post, I wrote about the surface mining level that I built for Savanna Sam. Currently, I’m working on the level following that one, where Sam actually goes underground!
Whenever characters venture into an underground mine, I have to think of a certain fellowship of adventurers ;-) As a Lord of the Rings fan, I want to have my own “they dug too deep” moment. However, since Savanna Sam isn’t taking place in a fantasy setting, having an ancient demon appear feels a bit out of place.
So, maybe the miners stumbled upon some bones of real animals instead. And maybe the skeletons, having been disturbed in their slumber, come back to life…
Dinosaurs don’t cease to be awesome, even when you get older ;-) Above you can see the concept artwork for the T-Rex skeleton. I have alreads modelled and rigged the character, as well:
I spent a good portion of the last week to create a new background character for the mining level in Savanna Sam. The mine in the game is operated by a company run by meerkats. So, I needed a meerkat miner that would populate the level while Sam is traveling through it.
I used this opportunity to try and document even more of my process. This time, I recorded a timelapse of me sketching the meerkat miner:
This is the resulting artwork:
I then used this as a reference to model and texture the 3D model of the character:
Of course, the model needs to be rigged and animated as well!
And now, I can place these little guys all over the level:
I’m quite happy with the outcome, and I have once more learned a couple of things, especially in regards to rigging and animating. :-)
Right now, I’m working on a new level for Savanna Sam. I’m creating an industrial themed set of graphics for this level. The reason for this is that Sam, at this point in the game, has left the Savanna and is flying through a diamond mine.
I’m still early in the process, but you can already see some early environmental graphics and the changed color palette due to the different time of day:
As you can see, this time Sam isn’t flying over an open space, but through a huge trench created by the mining operations. During the level, the trench is supposed to take turns that Sam needs to follow with his plane.
There is a bunch of objects and characters that I’m creating for this level, the first of which is a classic mine cart:
In the level, the mine carts will move along tracks, creating more obstacles for Sam to avoid.
Currently, I’m working on the second level for Savanna Sam. For this level, I’ve painted a more elaborate background compared to the first level. The background image uses a panorama effect, similar to panorama photos that most smartphones can make, where several photos looking into different directions are stitched together.
In my case, the panorama is arranged vertically. So, the upper portion of the image represents the view that you would see if you look straight at the horizon, and it blends into the view where you would look straight down at the ground.
This is what it looks like in it’s entirety:
So, what do I need a vertical panorama background for? At one point in the second level, Sam flies over the edge of a cliff and continues to fly downward along the wall of the cliff. I need the background for the moment where Sam transitions from flying straight at the horizon to flying along the comically tall stone wall:
I think the effect is pretty neat, considering how relatively low-tech it is.
Let Sam give you some positive vibes! You can do the thing!
This is a new reaction animation Sam will now perform when you collect an item. This gives the game more personality! I am currently adding more reaction animations for other situations, like receiving damage.
Another thing I have been working on recently is the “level finished” screen. Among other things, I have added a display showing how many lives you still have (Yes, there are lives now!).
Also, there is now an animated UI showing how many (and which!) gold rings you have collected in the level:
I’m currently busy adding missing details to the game. I want to finish a complete vertical slice before I continue with creating the next playable level.
One of the details I finally have come around to integrating is something I can’t believe took me this long to add: Sam’s plane finally has a propeller!
It’s one of those details that don’t really have any impact on the gameplay, but visually, it makes quite a difference, of course.
I also had some of my friends play the game and found that they got stuck due to missing information about the controls of the game. So, it was time to add tutorial/hint screens, so that players don’t need to find out which buttons to press by themselves via trial and error.
What makes creating these a little tedious is that there are basically three control methods the player might use: keyboard, gamepad and touchscreen. The tutorial screens need to be able to display informations for all three of these. Currently, the tutorial screens will highlight the controls for the method the player used last, with the other two being shown at the side to hint at the other ways you can play the game as well.
I have also added a number of sound effects to the game, which is a little tricky to show here ;-)
I’m still adding more features to the game. One of the more recent additions is the first story cutscene that I created and that now plays when you first start a new game of Savanna Sam.
I’ll admit the cutscenes in the game will not be full motion videos, but 2D comics that you can interactively click through. But I think they still integrate well into the look of the game and are posing a reasonable amount of effort I need to invest into them ;-)
I have added the second character to the game! It’s an elephant NPC who is first appearing at the waterhole that you fly over in the first level.
First, I visualized the variants of the character I want to show up:
Then, I modelled, textured and rigged the elephant in 3D. Short, chubby characters like this guy can be tricky to animate, especially if you use such a small amount of polygons. At some points, you just need to cheat for certain animations by subtly scaling bones, for example.
And here they are, having a great time at the old waterhole:
They even react if you fly close to them with your airplane:
I have switched out the old placeholder environment graphics in my first level for the actual graphics!
Before, I was just repeating a quickly modelled river object that I slapped an earth/sand texture on. It fulfilled it’s job as a stand-in so that the level would have a ground and it let me implement the level-of-detail-mechanics for environment graphics.
But, they weren’t very pretty. The brown colors even look a little bit post-apocalyptic, I think. So, it was time to start and create the actual level graphics.
Since the first levels are supposed to take place in the eponymous savanna, I needed to find a way to somewhat convincingly depict fields of grass. I don’t want to render actual thousands of blades of grass, and I also want something that fits the cartoon style of the character.
I tried several approaches and I found a way to depict this kind of landscape in a way I’m happy with.
This looks much friendlier already. Also, the grass creates a nice parallax effect in motion (It does not translate well to animated GIFs, unfortunately!)
I have also added the hills at the side as an added detail. It’s fun to create little worlds like this.
I’m not quite done, however, I still want to add trees, bushes and rocks to complete the environment.
There is now a miniature version of Sam!
I have modeled this smaller version of Sam for the overworld map, of which I implemented a first version recently:
As you can see, the map is very much still a work in progress.
While I will continue to implement functionality into the map, I plan to create the actual visual design for it pretty late in the game, when I know which levels there are and in which order the player is going to encounter them.
For now, you can already travel on the map and select the level you want to play:
Another step for this project towards feeling like a real game! :-)
Hi everybody!
When creating games, sometimes seemingly mundane things can create the most work. Like giving your game a neat little intro and title screen. Doesn’t sound very spectacular on its own, but it requires a couple of things you don’t think about very much when playing games.
Suddenly, your game needs a logo, for example. I quickly put one together in Inkscape and exported it to Blender so I can animate it in the intro sequence.
Then, I want the player to be greeted by the official Savanna Sam title theme when starting the game! Which, of course, requires me to write and record said theme. So, I dusted off my midi-keyboard and fired up LMMS, and after more than a weekend, I now have the first of hopefully several catchy tunes to set the mood for the game.
I then could load the song file into Blender and animate the intro sequence so that it matches the beats of the song. The intro sequence really isn’t very long, and yet, even animating such a relatively small scene takes a lot of effort! That salad of lines below is the visualization of part of the animation from the intro sequence.
All that effort, just so that the player is gets a neat little introduction to the main character of the game:
I’m currently building levels for the game, placing obstacles and items to create hopefully interesting courses.
Not using Unity or Godot to create this game means that I don’t have a tool to create 3D levels for the game. Instead, I’m using Blender to place objects and making sure the distances and the timing of obstacles is correct.
Since I’m already using Blender to create the characters and items appearing in the game, using it to create the levels seems logical to me.
Any geometry that I need specifically for a level, like buildings or bits of environment, is modeled and stored directly in the level Blender file. If the object needs to appear more than once, then I will create instances, which generates additional positions for the object but prevent the geometry and texture coordinates to be duplicated.
By using instances, I can see within Blender how the object fits into the level at each position. Later, the game will be able to recognize, which geometry data the respective instances are using and render the correct 3D objects at each position.
For general objects like items, I’m simply using placeholders in Blender. By using a specific naming convention, the game will know which object to use for each placeholder.
I hadn’t posted an update over the easter holidays, but I have been busy nonetheless! The game is slowly starting to look more and more like a game.
Rendering the landscape has improved considerably:
Also, the world we are flying through now has 3D clouds, which I think is quite important ;-)
To make sure rendering the environment isn’t using up too much performance, I have implemented a simple level-of-detail-system. Most level objects will have two versions of themselves, one with fewer details and one more detailed version. The game will render the low detail version if the camera is further away, and switch to the high detail version once the camera comes closer.
This should keep the number of polygons rendered low, which will hopefully make the game run more smoothly especially on mobile devices.
Everything is rings now!
I wasn’t too happy with using the x-ray effect for pretty much every item that you can collect in the game. It looked visually cluttered and could make the game a bit confusing if you constantly hat colorful shapes superimposed on your character.
After some pretty good feedback over at the Newgrounds forums, I decided to change the collectable items to be ring shaped.
I was a bit hesitant at first, since I feel that “flying through rings” is a bit of a flying game cliché, but I suppose there is a good reason why they are used so often.
With the new item design, I can turn off the x-ray shader and still have the player see where the item is, even if the character is flying in front of it.
So, coins and wrench items are now golden hula hoops and turning cogs, respectively.
And the hearts are now heart silhouettes:
I was also able to solve some of the environment rendering issues mentioned in the last post, though I am still working on that part of the game.
So, I’m in the middle of implementing actual levels.
I’m currently trying to figure out how to best manage and display level geometry and objects appearing in the levels like buildings and obstacles.
I think some of my basic approaches already work quite well, like creating a file format that combines 3D geometry that is needed for the current level with placeholders that tell the game where the geometry needs to be rendered.
However, I have a good amount of work still ahead of me. At this step, some of the challenges of the perspective the game is rendered in become apparent:
There is already some early version of the level system visible in the game. Some of the problems are quite visible, but should be fixed relatively easily:
When flying a little higher, the problems with the viewing distance become very apparent:
I hope I will make some progress on this in the coming days and weeks.
I’ve added a small quality of life feature to the game. I found that the character model is often obscuring items that you are about to collect, making it tricky not to miss them.
To prevent this very basic gameplay element from being frustrating, I’ve added an x-ray shader for these elements. So, whenever the the character is in front of any of these items, a colored silhouette is rendered. This is done for hearts:
for wrenches:
and for coins:
I think the shader works pretty well already, and it fulfills it’s purpose. Maybe a bit too thoroughly, though. In some cases, the character is full of colored shapes. Often from objects that are still quite far away and not really relevant yet.
I’ll try and optimize this. Maybe I can try and fade the effect in when the item gets closer to the player?
So far, it was only possible to avoid obstacles, now there is also something to fly towards! I’ve implemented items! Another basic, but important building block for the gameplay.
The player can now collect coins, increasing their score:
They can collect wrench items to repair their airplane:
And they can collect heart items to regain health points:
Most basic gameplay elements are here, the next steps will be to build actual levels with the elements that are there already.
I’ve added some basic, but important features, making this feel much more like a game already: A health bar!
Currently, the health bar is split between Sam’s health and the state of repair of the plane.
If Sam himself gets hurt, then the player loses one (or more?) hearts.
The plane’s health is further divided into segments. If Sam hits an obstacle with the edge of his plane, like the tip of the wings or one of the wheels, then he only loses one segment.
However, if Sam crashes his plane into anything dead center, then the equivalent of a full wrench is taken off.
If Sam’s plane is in poor shape, it starts to leave a trail of smoke:
And, of course, if Sam runs out of health, then the player sees a game over screen (which I am going to make prettier, I promise)
My next step would be to implement collectable items that will replenish Sam’s health :-)
