Let's see what the devs have been working on this week!
Bryan - As we continue adding menus and features to finish the game’s co-op mode, we have also been looking for more things for players to do in Morvin’s room (the “hub zone” of the game). We decided to handle co-op mode selection by interacting with player two’s character, Morv-0 as it “recharges'' by Morvin’s bed. Being made from a repurposed grill, Morv-0 is charcoal powered so I made a little contraption to automatically feed it nutritious briquettes. The robot is Morvin’s prize winning science fair project and is sure to come in handy if you want to run the Quickstop with a friend!
Lauren - This week I've focused on Tiktok and Instagram with a sprinkle of memes in between and a whole lot of coffee! I've made a TikTok schedule for the coming week and been finding the secrets to Instagram through algorithm research. The key here is to give you the best posts at the best times in the day, so when you open your smartphone/ laptop / electronic potatoes, you get to see updates on our game.
Ian - Last week Bryan was busy creating new effects for our final boss fight. This week I am starting to set them up! Sometimes it is hard to know if what you are creating is enough or too little for your end goal, so you just have to try stuff. This is the first pass of a bunch of these effects in motion. In fact, it’s not even done yet! One of the hardest parts is getting the feel and timing of everything correct. You can no longer just snap things on or off. You have to give time for the effects to actually complete while making sure the logic behind the scenes can handle any scenario of interruption.
And that wraps it up. Feel free to check out our discord and our twitter for more updates!
Cosmo's Weekly Update #7
Let's see what is going on this week.
Bryan - This week I’ve been building UI and effects for the final boss fight. The fierce competition between Cosmo’s Quickstop and Quazar’s Convenience Cube reaches a climax when both parties agree to an ultimate showdown. Without giving too much of the mechanics away, I’ll leave you with this cryptic preview of the fight’s heads up display. It’ll make much more sense in-game, trust me.
Lauren - This week I got to jump into more streamer chats and see them take on our demo and get high scores and of course do perfect voice impressions for Cosmo! The rest of the week was spent on market research, batch video creation and streamer outreach with the occasional meme and way too much coffee!
Ian - This week has been more multiplayer campaign work! We started an official 2 person playthrough (before I was just playing multiplayer by myself to bug hunt) and so far it is going extremely well. We are finding small balance things and a bug here or there, but overall it is all going relatively smoothly. And most importantly, we are having a lot of fun playing! If you have worked on a game for 4+ years and you still have fun playing it, it normally means you are doing something right. On a side note, here is a gif of another cutscene into multiplayer gameplay transition that I set up this week.
And that is that. Check us out next week or on our socials below to get even more Cosmo's Quickstop dev news!
Cosmo's Weekly Update #6
Here's another weekly update from the Cosmo's Quickstop crew. Looks like they have tons of stuff to talk about this week!
Lauren - *Includes extra spicy🔥 info!*
This week I've been working in secret to get all the juicy details and organize everything IWOCON (Indie World Order Convention.) The super-secret reason for this is because we are featured as one of the indies!
That's right, you heard it here!👂 We’ve made a booth for the in-game convention where you can play our demo and be a pirate! YAR! and all that. The event starts right now until April 2nd!
Head on down and come sail away with us. We are located on Smiley island! (Map included)
Bryan - *Minor Spoilers Ahead*
This week I’ve been fleshing out some effects for the final showdown with Cosmo’s nemesis, Dr. Quazar. Throughout the fight, Quazar can zap the player’s Quickstop, causing one of the docks to malfunction until the player repairs it. To really drive the point home, I’ve been adding all sorts of chaotic FX to signify a broken dock. Fire, arcing electricity and even a holographic Quazar shows up to mock the player’s struggle. We want this final challenge to feel really epic and I think these effects will help a lot.
Erin - Sometimes animation happens very easily and naturally, but other times it takes a lot of effort. This animation went through like 15 bad phases before it landed in this direction. First, we tried having the cat hiding behind Morv-O and he shoo’d the lil guy away. Then later, we tried having the cat hanging off the robot’s back, but the cat is gigantic, so none of the robot’s acting was reading well. Anyway, we got here eventually! And I, for one, am glad this one’s finished. You’ll be able to see this animation in the game during the multiplayer tutorial.
Ian - Last week was about finding bugs, this week was about fixing them! One of the things that had to get done was to set up a transition between the single cutscene camera into the split screen game cameras during the start of the tutorial. For the opening tutorial cutscene, we have a camera pan around showing off the characters and the station. In the end it should swap to the gameplay camera seamlessly, which is how it is set up in singleplayer. Multiplayer was tougher. We had to go from one camera to two cameras, somehow split the screen in that process, and get the UI in there too! Here you can see a gif of what that transition ended up looking like. It isn’t quite perfect yet but is certainly good enough for now.
That wraps up this week's update. If you want more frequent updates, or even if you just want to hang, make sure you check out our Twitter and Discord.
Cosmo's Weekly Update #5
Looks like the devs are really hitting their stride. Let's see what they are working on this time!
Erin - This week, I’ve been working on some more animations that you’ll only see when playing multiplayer! Below is a little preview of what I’m working on, which is a tiny cutscene before you start the second day of the tutorial. The idea is that when you beam into the station, your space cat sneaks in too. Morv-O will find the sneaky cat hiding behind him and shoo him away. We’re always looking for more places to use the cat, so this was a fun chance to get him into a scene.
Lauren - It's been all about meet and greet the aliens this week on TikTok! I'm adding more humour to the videos and freshening them up with some facts about the aliens that many people didn't know! And I've been writing up plans this week for more fun activities to do on our Discord and get everyone involved! The other part of the week has been reaching out to some streamers interested in playing our demo and scheduling streams for the upcoming weeks!
Ian - This week is the start of playing through the multiplayer campaign! Currently I am up to the second boss and have found 59 bugs so far, which is around where I expected the number to be. These things involve small issues like “Controller recharge tip window stuck on if player changes control scheme mid day” and more ambiguous things like “How broken is the beauty capstone?” Finding all these issues is always a little overwhelming because it is a reminder on how much work you need to do, but once you start fixing them it actually feels really great to see the list get smaller and smaller. Below is a small section of bugs that have already been fixed.
And that wraps up this week! Keep an eye out for future updates about what the devs are working on next.
Cosmo's Weekly Update #4
Time for another weekly update! Looks like we had another busy week working on all sorts of aspects of the game.
Bryan - This week I’ve been doing a polish and FX pass on the game’s final cutscene. This is the phase where I add any special effects like particle systems and tweak minor things like camera and character placement to get the scenes feeling just right. It’s pretty tedious to replay the same cutscene over and over to test each incremental change, but it’s definitely worth the effort!
Lauren - This week I’ve been making short videos for our Tiktok and Youtube channels and finding more ways to share the good word of Cosmo out into the interwebs! The videos were super fun to make, and I hope you enjoy watching them! I chose to focus the video content on alien lore this week because we have such a wide variety of backstories and quirks for each customer you meet at Cosmo’s Quickstop!
Come join us at Tiktok - - > https://www.tiktok.com/@bigsirgames
Erin - Our team’s focus is changing to getting the multiplayer campaign done, so my focus is now on new mini-cutscene animations! We already had a start-of-game animation done for Morvin, but we needed one for his grill robot buddy, Morv-o. Things are clearly going well with that as you can see below. This was a test to see whether we could get some simple squash and stretch working without needing to do more complicated Unity magic. I think you can make your own assumptions on whether the test was successful.
Ian - I wear a lot of hats on this project. This week I was diving back into my role of producer. I met up with our audio folks and started doing an audit of the ingame sound. This involves finding sounds that have been made but not implemented, finding sounds that might not be the latest versions, finding sounds we feel the game still needs, and tweaking the final mixing. As I am not an audio person myself, my role here is just to make it as easy as possible for them to do their job by providing them with as much information, transparency, and insider knowledge about where everything is at. Here is a little sample of the current spreadsheet we are working on.
And that's that. Tune in next week to see what we are working on next!
Cosmo's Weekly Update #3
Here we are for another round of updates from the devs. What are those folks up to this week?
Bryan - This week I’ve been setting up special loading screens for challenge mode. Each challenge day focuses on a few specific mechanics that players may or may not have experienced before depending on their progress in the campaign and the choices they’ve made throughout it. We decided to include a few helpful pointers on each challenge day’s loading screen to make sure people aren’t going in blind.
Erin - Another exciting week of fixes to the final cutscene. The good news is that I'm in the final stretch! The timing of everything is nearly perfect, so I've been moving on to a final pass on animation. Ian and I both agree that this cutscene in particular will benefit a great deal from audio, so we can't wait for our audio team to do a pass on it! This week I've also been involved with our group of closed beta testers to figure out what's working and what isn't. We've been hearing a ton of positive feedback about the full game this week, so I'm in high spirits! Currently playing Deep Rock Galactic and Two Point Hospital DLC.
Ian - I am deep in the weeds getting our new multiplayer tutorial up and running. Creating a tutorial is hard. You are often twisting the game to make it perform in a very specific way. You have to be ready for players to accidently try to break it at every corner. When it comes to a multiplayer tutorial, take that difficulty and double it, then double it again, and maybe double it once more for good measure. It ain't easy. However, I am making good progress and I can already tell this new version of the tutorial will be way better then the last one! Hopefully it will be done soon so we can start some multiplayer campaign playtests!
Lauren - This week has been all about videos galore! I have booted up Tiktok, a new Youtube channel that features short clips of Cosmo’s Quickstop and we now have Reels on Instagram! This means that if you use any of these social media you’ll never miss out on what we post! We are putting up the newest build graphics from the final game so you can see how much we’ve progressed over the years of development!
Make sure to follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigsirgames
And that wraps it up. Check us out next week to see what we are working on next!
Cosmo's Weekly Update #2
Round two of our weekly updates!
Ian - As we get people to test single player, we are on the march to get the multiplayer campaign mode up and running. The first step is to actually allow people to choose multiplayer or single player, so here is our new character select screen! You can cycle through unlocked costumes and active players. Most importantly it comes with tech to allow a much requested feature. Multiplayer with a mix of keyboard/mouse and controller! That’s right folks, you can now play multiplayer with two controllers or one controller and one keyboard/mouse. We even have all the in-game UI show the proper buttons for your side of the screen no matter what set up you have. This is one of those features I have been promising to a lot of people over the years, so I am super glad we have it up and running.
Bryan - This week I’ve been tidying up my work on props for special events that will happen throughout the campaign -- namely, alien days. These special days introduce a new species of alien customer that will continue to frequent the Quickstop throughout the campaign. Each of these themed days features unique props, music and special effects that revolve around the species’ lore and aesthetics. Prickle day, for example, is littered with cowboy props, tumbleweeds and an old-timey camera effect that reflects their wild west homeworld.
Lauren - I popped into some streamers’ Twitch channels to help them and watch them play the demo; one of the best parts of my job is seeing how people react to playing Cosmo's for the first time! It's priceless and so fun to see.
We have a Tiktok channel and I want to bring Cosmo's to more social media, so I've been analyzing and writing up blueprints for a new format release! So keep your eyes peeled on our socials!
Erin - Cutscenes take a lot of time, so this week I’m still spending the majority of my time finishing up the last cutscene of the game. Things are looking really good! We came up with some new ideas for how to add some punch to the last part of the cutscene that I think everyone will enjoy. When we add entirely new ideas to cutscenes, I like to do a rough pass on new animations in Maya, then work out the timing and camera work in Unity before adding any polish. What we have here is Morvin’s last cutscene shot of the whole game (still very much in the rough animation stage!). Also, I can’t stop playing Valheim.
And that's the round up! Keep an eye out next week for more updates(as long as we can stop playing Valheim and actually get some work done!)
Cosmo's Weekly Update!
Heyo folks! This is the start of our new weekly updates about what is going on in the world of Cosmo's Quickstop development. The hope is to keep you updated on what we are working on, what we are thinking about, and to give you a little insight into all the things we are getting done to try to get the game to you!
Bryan - This week I’ve been fleshing out Challenge Mode with a new menu and coming up with names and descriptions for each. The challenges are meant to be optional content that’s supplementary to the campaign, offering unique but familiar experiences. Some focus around using specific amenities or upgrades while others are remixed versions of boss fights. Each challenge is being tested and refined. We want to find a sweet spot for them where the goals of the challenge align with the difficulty of the mechanics. Not too hard and not too easy.
Erin - This week, I've been putting my efforts into finishing up the last cutscene. This one has been half-done for a long time now, so it'll feel good to finally finish it up. A good ending is super important, so just this week we decided to add a few more beats to the cutscene to really make it. My favorite part of working on cutscenes is all the custom animation. Can't wait to show it off!
Lauren - This week I dived into the depths of Twitter and reached out to streamers that would be interested in playing our demo on Steam! I dusted off Instagram and started to post game content and concept art from our other channels to grow on all the platforms, whilst navigating through the new algorithm! Power is knowledge, so I searched the inter-webs for alternatives to E3, this year and other indie conventions so I could gather a golden list of ones we can apply! I wanted to add some more positive vibes to our discord so I added a whole-corner for people to show off anything that has made their day!
Ian - Normally I’m programming or designing but after a big push this previous week, we just started a new round of beta testing! To get everything ready for all this external testing I have been doing boring legal work. This is our first round of non-friends and family testing so we had to get a little more secure about who sees what. So we cobbled together a NDA from some other documents we had that’s perfect for the occasion. This ain’t too exciting but it's a real look at all the lame stuff you got to do while trying to release a freaking game!
And that wraps it up for this week. Keep an eye out every Friday for more updates!
Cosmo's Quickstop Developer Livestream #2
Miss the first stream? Have more questions? Do you just want to see the devs flex their high score prowess? The come on down to our second livestream!
We will be showing off the demo, talking about development, and chatting with you! If you are lucky you might even see a sneak peak of our up and coming campaign mode, featuring 19 amenities, 4 boss fights, 70+ upgrades, and more!
Cosmo's Quickstop Developer Livestream
Come join the team at Cosmo's Quickstop. Watch developers try to beat their high scores, show off multiplayer, and spill the details about the upcoming campaign mode. With over 19 amenities, 4 boss fights, 70+ upgrades, and tons of challenges and costumes to unlock, there is a lot to talk about!
