I recently finished Carpoon’s second last milestone to more clearly show objectives before matches. One more to go!
Here's my devlog on implementing the objectives and other recent changes:
And I did add a setting to skip the objectives once you are used to them
Other Updates • Harpoonable start button replaced floating text
• Signs that require holding the harpoon • Tried analog input to drive slower at times • Hold brake (L-Trigger) to go in reverse in tight spots
•Key art update
Only 1 more milestone to go to improve some of the risk vs reward game essence in VS mode! I’ve already started by changing the “parking lot” in VS to waves as well to keep a limited number of targets.
Thanks for reading and following along! -Tom
Rebuilding Carpoon's Shaky Camera
Finished another major milestone recently by rebuilding Carpoon’s camera! It was a feature requested by several players to remove some constant shakes it had. These shakes happened while trying to zoom in or out to keep players in view, or so I thought.
-Used YellowAfterlife’s multi-object tracking camera script https://yal.cc/gamemaker-view-following-two-objects-at-once/ -Found there was still some shakiness and it turned out the truck rumble was translating to camera coordinates. Removing this aspect fixed the camera by half -New camera was too quick to react! Had to add lerps and send out camera trackers from the player to smooth things out. -Added a player deadzone to prevent the camera from moving when players are doing tight turns. Makes the screen less jumpy for other players -Clamped the camera within borders on some levels to not zoom out too much. Created a separate object for the camera to track that follows the player around to do this -While zooming out is quick to keep players on screen, I slowed down zoom-in because it felt too intense otherwise.
Things that would have been a bonus: -Weighted objects for camera priority -Smooth lerp into border edges -Spent a lot of time trying to have a look-ahead point again but I ran into issues where the camera would move too quickly from side to side, or not keep up with the player and they would go offscreen. Having borders with a maximum range that the camera could go and a center point that kept onscreen helped make this not as needed.
Next milestones: 1 Clearer “How-to play” and objectives 2 Fix up some of the game essence for risk vs reward in 1 or 2-player mode 3 Release game!
The Road to Carpoon’s First Tournament, Held at LTX 2023 + Recent Progress
Carpoon recently had its first tournament as a mystery game at LTX 2023. Thank you to my friends for the countless hours they helped test Carpoon, to LTX for the opportunity, and to all the tournament players!
Fixed before the tournament, there was a semi-rare hard crash while harpooning that turned out to be partially related to inheritance, and now things are easier for me to adjust. More on the tournament in the video.
Other notable updates: • In simultaneous grapples, an A-button will appear and it’s a frantic race to out-mash the other player to break free. This fixes stalemates that were happening in VS when ropes couldn’t be cut
• Baby trucks on your team drive to you when you honk your horn with a right stick click. In this last truck standing mode, there are also now trophies for second and third place
• Player trucks now recoil back off harpoon shots and rumble
Next up: Going over more feedback and smoothing out the camera
-Tom
Autoworks Co-op Progress & What’s Left - Carpoon Devlog Update
Here's a video covering a huge chunk of progress on Carpoon's Autoworks level, and going over the solution to make curved conveyor belts that didn't have to be from scratch. Plus using GMLive helped speed up things, and I touch on what's left to finish Carpoon.
Devlog Update: Things I should have avoided + Autoworks!
Probably adding the hotdog cart to more levels shouldn’t have been at the top of my list of features to add. In this video, I go over some things I should have avoided, and also an Autoworks update!
"Hang Four" Surfmobile Update
I finished adding Waves/Co-op mode to Carpoon's Volcarnage Island! Completely my silly idea of cars on surfboards wasn't as easy as I thought thanks to adding paths for them to follow. At this point, there are a couple of tweaks still needed for this level but I'll mostly be moving on to the Autoworks and perhaps one other thing.
Also, we had our first community matchmaking session recently over Steam Remote Play. Stay tuned for more to come in the future!
Carpoon Next Fest Developer Livestream
Hello, I'll be playing some Carpoon and talking about its development. Feel free to ask any questions about my game as I go along.
