Erin - From time to time in the game, Cosmo will call you to relay some very important information (usually a new task or to tell you to stop hiding his clipboard). We’ve affectionately named these calls Talking Heads, and now I permanently have Talking Heads songs stuck in my head (“Same as it ever was!”). Up until now, Cosmo was in the same boring pose for every call. Thanks to a few days of easy work this week, he now has the ability to express emotion! This is a game changer, it really adds a lot to these scenes.
Bryan - After doing some boring stuff like polishing menus, fixing bugs and revising text documents, I took another dive into the aquarium. This time I made a high-tech laser-powered cleaning animation for it! If you neglect the fish tank for a few days, it will inevitably become clouded with filth. Cleaning it from time to time will keep Morvin’s aquatic friends happy and hygienic.
Lauren - This week I've been posting content everywhere and doing more video editing! In between making content and reaching out to streamers, I've been catching up with all the gaming news from E3! It's been a great week!
Ian - This week has been focused on mostly cleaning up my task list. I had a bunch of things that would take under an hour to fix clogging it up, so I decided to do them all! This includes medium priority bugs (things that wouldn't break the game but the average player would notice), implementation of already completed assets (sounds, animations, particles), quality of life changes for us and player (button navigation, performance issues, post alien day ambassadors), and all sorts of other stuff too. One of those things was setting up Morvin's ability to walk! I know you are supposed to walk before you run, but he spent the last 4 years only running lol. The animation had been done for a while, I just needed to set up proper animation blend state between idle/walk/run that interpolated based on his move speed. Turned out pretty well!
And there you have it, all the news that is fit to know from the world of Cosmo's Quickstop.
Cosmo's Weekly Update #17
It has been a busy week for everyone as do our best to get this game done! Let's see what everyone is up to.
Erin - After getting distracted by a few side tasks over the last few weeks, I was finally able to finish up a lottery drawing program that you’ll be able to see on Morvin’s TV. It wasn’t quite weird enough for Ian’s tastes, so we went in a green goo direction for part of it. Making another fun thing for Morvin’s TV next week!
Ian - It has been a super busy week for me! I got achievements working in Steam, reworked some of our save systems, did a small polish and audio pass on the final boss, added in some new animations all over the place, added new particles effects for some amenities, polished the final cutscene, fixed a bunch of menu issues, and in general fixed about a million bugs! Only another billion things to go ;P Here is a gif some of the new particles showing up when an alien buys something from giftshop.
Lauren - This week it was back to more video editing and rendering out all of our gifs into a lovely sleek mp4 format for Tiktok and Instagram. I then dived into Reddit, showcased some in-game emote interactions, and reached out to more streamers to play our demo!
Bryan - This week I’ve been busy doing a bunch of UI stuff. In addition to prettying up some new menus for sandbox mode, I’ve been making icons for Steam achievements as well. Here’s a sneak peak of a few of them. These ones are pretty basic and expected, but I don’t want to give away any of the weirder ones!
Hope you enjoyed that update. Keep an eye out for even more updates in the future.
Cosmo's Weekly Update #16
Lets see what the crew was working on this week!
Bryan - This week I’ve been making tons of icons and buttons to handle setting up custom control schemes. Since we want all keyboard buttons to be remappable I’ve had to create custom art for amenities that display input prompts, like Coffee Showers. It’s not glamorous work, but it’s gotta get done! Here’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Lauren - This week has consisted of video editing a bunch of our gifs for social media platforms. It's been a super fun process, and getting to look back through the game's development has shown me how far we've come! I've also reached out to more streamers to try out our demo and remote play in my editing downtime!
Ian - Was a short week for me because both my mother and my mother-in-law were in town! I was able to find a little time to start my venture into integrating the game with more Steam features, including cloud saves. Was a surprisingly easy process, with no code involved. Just had to tell Steam about what files to pay attention to and everything else was a snap. This coming week we are going to start hooking up achievements, so let us know if you have any requests ;P
A quick update for a quick week. Keep an eye out for other updates about the game coming soon!
Cosmo's Weekly Update #15
Lots going on this week, lets see what everyone is up to!
Erin - I’ve been doing a ton of animation this week, which has been great! All of the alien customers needed a generic interact animation, so I got those done super quick earlier this week. Then, I was excited to move on to making some new programming for Morvin’s TV. This one is a Galactic Lotto drawing! The lotto machine is one of the amenities in the station, so this will add a little extra lore to that. I’m going to be making a few varieties of these (think Powerball, Megamillions, etc), all with different winning “numbers”.
Lauren - Hey space travellers! This week, I've launched some more footage from the game onto TikTok! I've also done some trend studies on current market conditions in the game industry that I'll be discussing with my teammates. And finally, I introduced another handful of streamers to our game via the demo. Nothing feels better than watching new players enjoy something that your team has created, and I had a fantastic time with the creators who plunged into Cosmo's world this week. Happy gaming!
Bryan - This week I made another pet for Cosmo’s aquarium, who should look a bit familiar. It seems this hapless human got more than they bargained for on their spacefaring adventure. Will they find a way to escape back to Earth, or will they resign to their fate as another one of Cosmo’s interstellar curios?
Ian - Below is the screen I have been staring at for most of this week. It’s a plugin we use to help manage player input with different control schemes. This week I have been implementing the ability for players to rebind their keyboards to make the game more accessible. It is a ton of work! There are three main parts to implementing it. First, we have to get a menu setup that lets you see what is bound to what and allows you to change that. Second, we have to have those changes show up properly in every world ui, menu, tip window etc. Lastly, we need a system to save those changes so you don’t have to reset everything each time you start the game, but also still maintain the ability to restore everything to default on a per minigame basis! Very tedious to set up, but we are making good progress and should have it all done next week. The best part is that it allows us to try out weird control schemes. I just tested trying to play the game 1 handed with everything bound to my mouse... which was pretty intense lol.
Phew, there we go! That wraps up this week of the weekly update. Tune in next week for even more news about what is going on.
Cosmo's Weekly Update #14
It has been a busy week coming from our state of the game meeting last Friday. Let's see what everyone has been focusing on.
Bryan - This week I rubbed shoulders with royalty by outfitting alien ambassadors with regal attire. These special versions of aliens appear at the end of their respective alien day event, which introduces a new species of customer. Rather than ending the round automatically like most days, these special events require interaction with an alien ambassador to usher in a new species of customer. The main point of this is to allow players some time to enjoy the Quickstop’s special decor after the event and give them an opportunity to interact with aliens they’ve never seen before without the stress of chores getting in the way.
Lauren - This week was awesome because I got to reach out to streamers about our demo and make some really cool Tiktoks to show off different features in the game. Next week I'll be playing through the game and you'll get to see upgrades and various tasks! Also, we have so much unreleased secret puppet Cosmo footage that I think you'll enjoy! Keep an eye out on our socials!
Ian - Menus, menus, menus, menus. This week I have been overhauling all the menus from the ground up. This means everything! Tons of new options, including split player camera sensitivity, tip window visibility, alert beeping, proper resolution options, even music track selection. Also new pause menu maps with proper goal display and the new ability to restart your day (sheesh that's a lot of new options!). Working on menus is never very glamorous but they are a crucial part of any game. Giving the player the ability to tweak their play experience can change something from unplayable to a 10 out of 10 with a simple press of a button. However, they are certainly a pain to design and implement. So many micro decisions on what goes where and how things interact can quickly turn the process into a slog. But knowing how powerful they can be in changing a player’s experience for the better is enough motivation for any game designer to make them the best they can be!
That's all she wrote. Tune in next week for more Cosmo's Quickstop updates.
Cosmo's Weekly Update #13
Lots of meetings, notes, lists, and spreadsheets this week. Lets see if anyone is actually did anything interesting!
Bryan - This week I’ve been handling a lot of little tweaks and fixes while polishing up some parts that need more pizazz. Most notably, I’ve been adding some spice to parts of cutscenes that need to feel more emotive. As more and more sound effects are getting implemented to enhance the game’s slapstick humor, some parts of the cutscenes are begging for more visual flare as well. So I’ve been adding cartoonish effects like a lightbulb appearing over Cosmo’s head when he has a bright idea, or confetti exploding everywhere when he talks about party plans.
Lauren - This week I got to announce the name that won all of the votes for our space fish! Our first space fish is called Fleeb, and what a glorious name it is! I've also been reaching out to streamers and introducing them to the world of Cosmo's Quickstop and our co-op mode!
Erin - My work this week won’t sound that impressive, since I’ve just been spending massive amounts of time in meetings and playing the game. But what this means is that we’re getting SUPER CLOSE to the end. We’re making lists of what’s left and tallying up who has what to do and realizing our lists are getting unbelievably short. That being said, I think we’re entering crunch time in order to get the game done in a decent window. Since my list of stuff to do is a lot smaller than Ian’s or Bryan’s, I’ve been shifting my time to more of a support role in daily life stuff. For example, I spent a few hours this week making a stack of homemade frozen lasagnas so that we have a few meals ready to go for when things get too hectic to think about what to eat for dinner before launch. Exciting stuff, I know. Anyway, here’s an unrelated gif of Business Bug celebrating how far we’ve come!
Ian - A big chunk of my week was preparing and organizing for our state of the game meeting. This meeting was to go over every part of the game and find out everyone's statues. Are cutscenes done? Where are we on the final boss audio? Do we need to tweak the glorp capstone upgrade? All the stuff like that. We just wrapped up the meeting (after 3 and a half hours!) and it went really well. We are analyzing where we are, but I can tell ya we are pretty darn close to actually having a game done! Here is a gif of me trying to run this meeting.
That's all she wrote. Tune in next week for more Cosmo's Quickstop updates.
Cosmo's Weekly Update #12
There has been a lot more multiplayer testing this week! Let's see what folks were able to squeeze in between rounds of the game.
Bryan - I’ve mostly been busy tying up loose ends while designing the game’s menu systems, but I’ve also found some time to populate Cosmo’s aquarium with new critters. Most recently, I made a googly-eyed alien puffer fish! I’m not sure what to name it yet, but like the last critter, we may leave it up to you all to make suggestions and vote on a favorite.
Lauren - This week I've been looking into analytics and seeing what posts you all like the most and what you want to see more of! I've also been creating some new ideas for Tiktok videos so everyone can get to see new animations they haven't seen before!
Erin - I spent a ton of this week playing video games (well, one in particular!). Ian and I made it through the Cosmo’s campaign together in multiplayer and I’m diving back into testing single player again. Having a ton of fun and making a ton of progress, but that means there hasn’t been a ton of time for animating. I did manage to get one or two emotes done for one of our bosses, Irene. You’ll see this if you use the celebrate emote around her. I don’t think she’s into celebrating.
And that's it for this week! Keep an eye out for other news in the future!
Cosmo's Weekly Update #11
Lots of testing this week trying to get the game perfect for you! Let's take a look.
Ian - This week has been a big push to get the multiplayer campaign done. Erin and I just finished our second playthrough and are feeling very good about the balance of everything. We hit a major stumbling stone earlier this week over one of our bosses. It was simply not fun in two-player. Luckily after a lot of discussion we were able to redesign the boss’s “fight” patterns without changing the mechanics. We didn’t even need to write any code! Our first playthrough of the new boss had us laughing, strategizing, and super engaged (That is always a good sign when you have been making the same game for almost 5 years). The last challenge of the multiplayer campaign is the final boss, which we will be testing later today. Here is a gif from us playing through multiplayer this week.
Erin - My week has mostly been filled with playing through the multiplayer campaign with Ian! It’s seriously been so great working out the kinks and figuring out balance. One of the things Ian and I bond over is talking about what would make game experiences better, so it’s been so much fun dissecting this together. When Ian was busy fixing surprise bugs, I spent some time making this animation, which you’ll see during the final boss.
Bryan - More options menu shenanigans! This time I’m setting up a key rebinding menu which is a lot of work for a game like Cosmo’s. Not only do basic interactions and movements need to be considered, but all the inputs for almost 20 minigames need to be adjustable as well. Instead of a mile long list of commands, we decided to separate them by page to make it more manageable for us to build and less daunting for players to navigate.
Lauren - This week was round two for choosing a name for our new fish character in Cosmo's Quickstop. We have three favourites Norf, Fleeb and Qurblerb. We can't wait to see what you chose from the online voting. I've also been setting up more tracking analytics to see where all of your human-like faces are coming from!
And that is that. Check us out next week to find more development news!
Cosmo's Weekly Update #10
Let's see what the devs have been working on this week!
Ian - This week has been final boss UI pass #2! This time we were adding in new cutscene effects, more visual indicators of what is going on, and just trying to get everything to feel a little more juicy. Two big things that we added were a screenwide alert when you are getting attacked and bigger visual effects when you are performing a super attack of your own. Both of these things help the player notice what is going on with the boss and help them feel a lot more connected to the game. It is amazing what a little extra player feedback can do to the feel and the fun! Here is a little gif of what the super attack is looking like. It isn’t quite done yet so things are subject to change, but I like the way it is looking so far.
Bryan - Nothing super exciting this week, but it’s essential nonetheless. I’ve been spending most of my time designing a more robust in-game menu for options, control schemes, music selection etc. While our barebones options menu in the demo is serviceable, we’re sure people will want more control in the finished product and this will allow for that. I’m not super experienced when it comes to UI design or 2D stuff in general, but I’ve been slowly (and reluctantly) figuring it out throughout this project. Either way, this is shaping up to be a vast improvement from what we had previously.
Lauren - This week I have been focused on finding a name for a new character in Cosmo's Quickstop! The new alien is space fish for our alien aquarium, which will be in Morvin's room.
So, I've been asking everyone in our community for name suggestions! We have had a great response so far! Next week we will pick the best, and then you will get to choose a favourite.
Erin - Today, I’m finishing up a commercial for the fictional fast food franchise, McBiteys. This commercial has a clean motion graphics vibe, so I decided to do it in some software that I’m not 100% comfortable in - After Effects. This app is POWERFUL, so this has been a great learning opportunity. To get this to look like a real commercial, I spent some time practicing making kinetic typography, which you see a lot in these kinds of ads. See below for a clip of what I came up with so far! This is definitely going to need a weird Cosmo’s Quickstop spin on it, but you may have to wait to see that in-game!
And that is that. Check us out next week for more Cosmo's Quickstop updates!
Cosmo's Weekly Update #9
Let's see what the devs have been working on this week!
Bryan - This week, I’ve been mostly focused on putting together boring UI stuff like the pause screen and options menu. When my mind gets too numb from these tedious tasks I like to have some more interesting side work to fall back to. One such side project is developing another fun, interactive element for Morvin’s room -- an alien aquarium! Here’s a little critter I made for it this week, with plenty more to follow.
Erin - I’m excited to be working on something that’s a big change of pace - some commercials and programs for Morvin’s TV! Normally, I work only in 3D character animation, but this little project is going to let me explore more 2D/handdrawn skills. Below, you’ll see part of a Bloopo commercial I’m finishing up. In the game, you’ll find Bloopos stocked in the vending machine - a tasty treat for the alien on-the-go. Let’s hope our commercial will boost those sales! I’ve got a big list of ideas for commercials and programming to create - hopefully I’ll have more to share on that next week!
Lauren - This week I've been making some new videos for Tiktok and showing off new animations. I've also been deep-diving into alien lore! I've been scoping out the main evil boss in the game, and showing off player two. Also, I've been networking on Twitter and reaching out to more developers through indie dev tags, showing off our game and seeing their games, which has been super fun!
Ian - This week we wrapped up our first co-op playthrough the campaign (sans the final boss). We had a ton of fun playing and it was really great to be reminded about how amazing the game is, especially in multiplayer. Our biggest task is to now analyze all our notes/bug issues and find where we need to tweak the balance of the game. We definitely have noticed the multiplayer was still making too much money compared to single player, so that is our first major spot to look at. Getting all these numbers just right is always tricky but you just have to keep tweaking until you find the perfect spot. Here is a little glimpse at one of our spreadsheets that control some of these numbers!
And that wraps it up. Feel free to check out our discord and our twitter for more updates!
