Demo 2: Primary Feathers of the Green Wing

Primary Feathers of the Green Wing is now available!

I've been flush with pride for the 30 days since the first demo was released. It's one thing to know an idea has potential and a completely different thing to see it in the flesh. For the past month I've been quietly hacking up more of Grip Prototype, and most of what's playable now has this deep connective framework behind it to make each successive release far faster and far larger. I am so happy and I so exhausted.

This second demo is five times the size of the first, twice the quality, and in less than half the time, and the next one should be twice the size of this one. Let's get to the features now, and where they're headed development-wise, followed by some of my working sketches for future things.

Grabbables! Probably the most exciting new feature of Feathers are the Grabbables. Some are platforms, like the sliders in Mixer and the Broom in Broom Game, but others are throwables like the Coin, Cassette, Rock, and Sword. Throwables will be even more fun when normal enemies have been added!

Death! Wiz now has a mana bar, which functions as a health pool. In the future this same pool will be used for other spells. The hope is that regen will be generous enough to enable this, and of course I have some other devious game balance plans in store for mana as a combat system. Wiz takes damage in a very traditional way, with hitboxes and that sort of thing. This is done to give more control to the player except when it's more fun to screw the rules, speaking of which...

Damage! Wiz can now damage things. Damage is based on kinetic energy, which means whether you're hitting enemies with the Hand, throwing something at them, or using one enemy as a projectile to hit another, it all deals damage. Even fall damage works this way! I'm aware this is a very strange way to do things, but the core of the fun in Grip Prototype is to surrender some of the game to the whims of the physics engine. Dealing damage to enemies is one of those whimsical things. Unfortunately, there aren't many enemies to practice this on at the moment, but the system is totally in place for the next release. If you'd like to dig into the guts of how much damage you're doing, damage is still reported in the console log, so you can throw Emeny around in the main room to try it out!

Save & Load Progress! An obvious one, probably, but still difficult. The game now tracks your progress and your best times on each of the levels.

Best Times! If you can figure out how to open the Pause Menu (esc while not in full screen), you can select My Times to see your best times for each level. This will also show you your Total Time, which is the time it took you to finish the game. Time doesn't count while you're in a menu! So don't be afraid to take breaks while shaving down your times.

My PR for Feathers is under five minutes. If you can beat this time, your Winner.

Notes!

My favorite thing to do whenever I have an idea is to sketch it out. If it's not obvious, I've been doing all the art as well as the planning and programming, so when I do game design, there's a lovely overlap.

The rest of these notes contain minor spoilers for future content! You've been warned.