cosy, action packed sewing! Draw circles to sew enemies 

I have started a new game that is similar to the Pokemon Rangers series. The player draws circles around enemies to damage them. Sew them up before you run out of time. Pretty simple game play loop;

Check out the game page here

Where I am up to

I am a couple of months into this project, only working on it at the weekend. The goal is to have 25 levels with 6 enemies for a small but polished game. 

At the moment I have 4 enemies in the game and the core loop working. This week I wanted to make the game presentable for my fiancé's playtest so I implemented a path tracer which visualizes the player's sewing line and added the audio!

Will be working on new enemies next week :) 

Thread Customizer

Was too busy to upload an update last week! the more presentable product of last week was the thread customizer. It lets you change the colour and thickness of the drawing mechanic to make the game more accessible or simply aesthetic for the player.

Pom Bom

Had a good weekend working on Sew Lovely. I implemented my final enemy, Setup the onboarding process and made a lot of patterns for the background art. 

I wanted to show off the enemy I made last week. Pom Bom! This moody guy is a pom pom mine and will blow up when you try to sew it (in the gif it looks like its going super saiyan) in addition to this, Pom Bom will keep launching napom artillery. Napom burns on the ground briefly to disrupt the player's sewing. You can sew the hazards to remove it quicker. Defeating Pom Bom also causes it to trigger a friendly explosion. Dealing 2 damage to nearby enemies, an incentive for taking a Pom Bom out first

Knit Knight

Last week I implemented the sixth and final enemy. Knit Knight is a medieval button with 2 states. Knight starts blind, completely unaware of you as it wanders around the screen. Sew it to break it's armour!

The Knight's visor starts lowered, blinding the knight while giving it armour (1st hit = 1 damage)

When you first sew it the visor becomes lifted and Knight can start detecting you. Allowing it to joust at you from a long distance! Knight will charge until it hits a wall where it will then roll back from the recoil 

Knight's joust attack charges left or right until hits a wall. You have a opportunity to sew it while it's stunned

The Knight is a more advanced enemy in the sense it has more states and options. The player can ignore Knight while it's blind and will have to pick the right moments when it is aware of the player with it's global-range attack. I hope you enjoy the medieval little guy 

Hand drew the logo and it was co-designed by my fiance'. I am sticking this on the fridge 

Feedback on the game

Hey everyone. I forgot to post last weekend as I did not have much time to spend on the project, but will share some bits shortly. This may be a boring post as its related to feedback. This weekend my younger sister tried out Sew Lovely. She knew about the project and really wanted to play it but she was struggling to get past level 2 and started to lose interest in the game which had me really worried.

A dev's greatest enemy is getting too comfortable with their own game and not realizing the obstacles that new or less skilled players will face, though I think my sister found the game impossible for a completely unforeseen reason. 

I noticed she was not actually any good at drawing circles with a mouse. Making slow movements and she would accidentally draw her cursor into an enemy. I asked her how often she uses a keyboard and mouse since her high school forces students to use Ipads rather than computers and she admitted she rarely uses a mouse. Its worrying that teenagers can struggle to use a mouse nowadays and it means Sew Lovely will have an unintentional motor skill barrier of using the mouse to causal players :/ 

I now want my easy mode to reflect easier mouse controls so players who struggle with a mouse have more time and accuracy to match normal players. It would be a shame if players struggle to enjoy the game because the simple controls have a motor skill barrier. Even if this is the 1% on itch it will help me identity how to create a great easy mode

Pin Enemy Rework

Now that all the enemies and levels are implemented I am trying to clean up the game by refining the AI. Pin has been a troublesome enemy and recently went through a re-work to play more like a chain chomp. Previously Pin would fly towards the player until it got pinned into a wall but this had a massive blow to the flow of the game 

The new Pin  sits on a pin cushion. These are real things used to keep all your sewing pins close by stabbing them into a cushion. Pin flies towards you but always retreats back to its pin cushion where it falls asleep. The actual pin cushion sprite is based on a pillow with lots of holes as the pin has stabbed it sleep on it :) 

Player range

A late addition to the player mechanic is adding a range to the player sewing. If you sew out of your radius the thread will snap and auto-complete

Sewing out of the lighter radius finishes your sew

I added this in because the player could easily cheat the game by clinging their mouse to the edges of the screen quick enough and sew everything on the screen in a single blow. I had a energy system to deter this, preventing you from sewing for too long but this proves more effective. The range limiter also means I could double the player's energy so they can sew slower and take their time before running out of juice 

Demo

Was hoping to have released this a couple of weeks ago but I finally got here. Since all the AI are and levels are playable in my project I wanted to share a early build of the game to get feedback and see what you guys think of the game. You can actually catch up on a lot of details I have added in but forgot to update in this devlog ;/

The best announcement of not-E3

By 'early build' I do mean it is close to launch but I want the time to take in feedback and make changes to the game. there are bugs and UI elements I want to fix so it wont feel like a complete experience yet :) please let me know what you think of the game if you try it out: 

https://rocketsimp.itch.io/sewlovely

Feedback so far

Took a small break while I got some feedback from the demo. I did not get any downloads from itch traffic initially so I have to thank everyone that tried it through the forums, 

Positive feedback

A lot of players really enjoyed the atmosphere of the game. They enjoyed the art and music in particular. The most promising feedback was that most players got past level 15, showing they understood the game and were able to progress past the tutorial which is great to hear :) 

I have also got a few comments comparing the game to the Pokemon rangers series and saying how the mechanics are well implemented which fills me with confidence. 

Critical feedback

The loudest feedback was regarding the difficulty. Most players tried the game on normal but were forced to play on easy where still they struggled. Some players made it to the end despite needing multiple attempts at each level. Its the crux of the developer, I can ace the game and forget how difficult it can be for other players

Most players also blamed their own skill for the game, I think there is a massive skill gap with drawing circles on a screen but I cannot blame anyone but myself as no one should be struggling this much to play the game. 

Fixing difficulty

There are a dozen ways I can go about reducing the difficulty but I want to be careful as the game is currently beat-able, I just need to make sure its fair for players. Some ideas;

• Normal mode will become easy mode as this is the favored mode. Easy mode will be an even easier mode (less AI health and more time)
  • A hard mode can be added down the line which I guess wont be far off the current normal mode
• Reduce the difficulty curve - AI get less health later in the game 
• Adding powerups to the game - an expensive choice for dealing with difficulty but gives the player a better toolkit to beat the game 
• Adding explosive barrels to the level to give the player more coverage and options for big crowds
• A brief slow-motion powerup to make it easier for the player to sew (Sew-motion)

Appreciate all the feedback so far and have some big things planned for Sew Lovely 

Want to give the game a try? try the free PC demo:

https://rocketsimp.itch.io/sewlovely

Slow-motion added in quick time

Made my last post regarding difficulty 4 hours ago and have made good progress on making the game easier and more accessible. I only have this evening to work on Sew Lovely so I am glad I've made good progress :) 

Time goes brrrr

The glamorous new  addition is a slow-motion ability. After 15 seconds into a level the player can activate  slow-motion to help them sew whatever they want. With enemy moves and attacks slowed by 60% the player can have a much easier time snagging enemies. 

The player only has 1 slow-motion activation per level. its a powerful tool and I dont want it to be over-used. However playing on chill mode gives you 2 activations so you have more opportunities

Chill mode > Normal mode  

Players preferred chill mode as it was the most acceptable level of difficulty. I have now put chill mode's easier stats into normal mode and made chill mode even easier! thats a further -2 enemy health and +15 time  for chill mode in addition to get it +1 slow-mo activation per level 

These will probably be added in next week as I the slow-mo ability still needs a polish

Easy Sewing Update

This week I released an update to make the game much easier. I sat down with my fiancé and watched her beat the game with the new difficulty and I am happy with the progress. 

The update focused on quick difficulty changes I could make to get the game heading in the right direction for testers. I will now start making new content that will make will create more opportunities for the player and therefore making the game easier. 

Some fun ideas I hope to implement next include;

• Adding explosive barrels for multi-kill opportunities 
• Adding a nudge tool to let the player push enemies, barrels and hazards around 
• Give enemies parry frames, while attacking you deal bonus damage to them 
• Making new game modes so enemy difficulty does not have to increase so much as more modes stimulate the game flow 

Try the new update here

Adding a push!

Been getting good feedback from my last update (thank you) this week I have been making a new push effect for the player's drawing mechanic. You can push enemies and objects around by drawing into them

Pushing button around

This push effect gives you more interaction and opens up more creative opportunities to defeat enemies. Sewing up enemies will remain the focus of game play, but messing with the AI like this is pretty fun. Some things you can do include;

• Push enemies out of a group, single them out and sew em'
• Push enemies into a wall! it deals 2 damage!
• Throw Napom back at enemies...you can throw items at them!
  • I will be adding more items to throw soon :)

Pushing an enemy into a wall deals 2 damage to it

This effect has changed up how the player sews. Drawing into an enemy no longer hurts you, it ends your sewing as normal but there is no long stun time. Hazards still block your sewing but they can be thrown at enemies, offering you utility.

Boos have also had a big rework since their hazards are now sort of useless. Throwing anything at boo or trying to push it will go right through Boo and it will teleport....like a ghost would The more you interact with Boo the more slippery it gets. 

One new trick: Push a weak Pom-bom next to another enemy so it's death explosion deals damage to it

Pushing is still new and I am adding more features to support it. Will be available in the next update

Try the latest update here

Improved navigation, preparing for the push features

Today I have been responding to feedback and making changes to the AI navigation to safely implement the new push tool 

I have added a new rule to the AI navigation when it moves. Now it must check whether it's next destination is inside an imaginary border. This stops the AI from getting too close to the edge of the map which made them un-sewable. They will always provide enough space to sew them from the sides of the screen.

Buttons cannot get close to the edge of the screens, purple lines showing where they try to move to

In addition to the new barrier, pushing enemies back into the map when they touch the edge, AI can never leave the map. They will always be accessible which is important in time sensitive missions 

Pushing sheep is Baaad

This gif shows the new barrier keeping enemies in naturally as a last attempt to keep them in play. They bounce off to a space where they can be sewn from the edge. 

The push update is now live! you can  try the update here. Push enemies around, throw napom back at enemies and enjoy an AI overhaul. I am happy with the changes going into the game. I have wrote a dev log on all the changes but here is a quick list of what I have been up to;

• Added the push tool, you can push enemies around or throw items at them
• Reworked Boo into a passive enemy
• Changed up the Knight enemy
• Improved AI navigation nerfed some enemies 
• Added some effects to maps 
• Improved the UI 

I will not be working on Sew Lovely for a couple of weeks and I hope to return with a list of feedback from players :) The next lot of content will continue to work on the push tool and adding player interactions to weaponize the map. 

Try the latest update here

Hey, I am back from my break with a new update for the game. Craftroom Armoury. This update added environmental items you can use as weapons. They all have sew and throw interactions to create new opportunities for you;

Glitter Bomb. Sew it up to detonate it or throw it at enemies

Pommel, the fluff juggernaut, throw it collide with enemies and your own sewing. You can also sew it up for a spikes powerup that leaves spikes wherever you sew 

Button Skulls, defeating an button now makes it drop a skull. Throw it at enemies to hurt them or sew it up for bonus time 

Pillows, throw them at enemies to put them to sleep. Enemies can also accidentally fall asleep by moving over them...like a non-lethal landmine

I have also added a strike system to levels. Failing a level on your third attempt will pass you despite your loss. This helps kerb the really difficult levels and lets you progress when you get a little stuck :) 

Presented with the new curtains fail screen

There are other changes throughout the game that are more patch notey. This update focused on bringing new opportunities and  breaking the monotony of only using the sewing mechanic to defeat enemies. The game feels more sandboxy and creative and its something I have really enjoyed playing with :)

Check out thenew update

New backgrounds

Sorry its been a while. I got distracted and forgot to update the dev log. This week I have been tearing the game apart to implement a much improved player mechanic. I have also been adding in new pattern themed backgrounds. Since the game is a top-down perspective these will fill the entire screen.

The main goal with these patterns was to break up the previous checkers/ square pattern that was used for every level by using fun shapes and negative space to make each level feel like a fresh scene.