BloatLand - A WarioLand Inspired WG Inflation Platformer (0.1.5)

Progress report on the next level, the level prototype is almost done!! I thought about rushing it an getting a build out, but I decided to wait another week or more. Act 1 and Act 2 are beatable at the moment though!

I added the other additional stuff needed to make Act 1 feel a little more unique, like spawnboxes, rising lava, and a new, gooey enemy. Same for act 2, which is quite a contrast to act 1; a few new enemies and obstacles, and a lot of adjustments to get it working.

I still need to implement the expansion for the new transformation, I’ve just been doing measurements and making mockups to figure out how I want Googal to grow in this state.
I’m going to be really curious what you all think about the body’s form for this, it’s different and took some experimenting, but I’m liking how it’s turning out.

Speaking of transformation mockups, I’m wanting to create better mockups for the transformations before the next build, since I feel like it’s been stuck with the bare minimum for long enough. They’ll probably still be lacking some animations and sprites, but at least they’ll be way more enjoyable to look at.
Same goes for a lot of the new enemies I’ve added, they’re just reusing existing sprites, and I’d like to draw them some real mockups.

Oh, and I kinda figured out the enemies in water problem. It’s not the most pretty solution, and may be changed in the future, but it works decent enough.

Hoping to get a build out there soon, since I haven’t done one in a while, but it’ll probably take a bit to properly set things up.

I’m back, sorry for being gone a while, but I think it may be another week or two before the next build. I did not get to work on this nearly as much as I thought I would; being busy, and also getting distracted with a stinky little side project, kinda threw me off a little on development.

I’ve made mockups for most transformations, and the new enemies, I just need to make mockups for the fat transformation and then I should be good to go. I’ve thought about tweaking how the fat transformation functions a little, but I’mma wait on that.

All I need to do is make the fat transformation mockups and place collectibles and enemies throughout level 2, and it should be ready to go? Act 1 and Act 2 in this new level is pretty much fully functional, so I don’t really know what to add onto it until I get some feedback on the new level.

I do wanna apologize for things taking so long, and for the state of the game being in this rough, prototype state for a while now (And it’s going to continue to be in this rough state for even longer). Hopefully the new transformation and enemy mockups, as well as the new level, will make up for it.
Obviously I haven’t really had much of a deadline, but considering how slowly things are moving, I think getting a prototype of level 3 would be a good goal to try to reach before the end of the year.

I don’t think I have any concept sketches to share, so here’s a sneak peak at a few of the mockups.

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The next build is finally out, 0.1.4, it took over a month but I finally got there.
I’m trying to think where to start, the biggest addition is the new level, SUMMER, which includes two acts, a new transformation, and multiple new enemies and mechanics. There are also a few updated mockups and sprites, so hopefully you all have fun looking at those.

I’m very curious to see what everyone thinks of these additions, and the current state of the game.

This is also the first time an act in a level must be unlocked before being able to complete it. It’ll be tough for people to notice without cutscenes and stuff, but if you complete a specific act, it’ll unlock another and alter the level that act is in.
I also added the ability to wipe save data. I haven’t touched the save/load function so you can still use your old saves, I just figured people might want this feature if they wanna test the Level/Act unlocks.

So yeah, I’m glad I got to this point. I’ve still got a long ways to go, but I feel like I’m a few steps closer. I hope you all enjoy what I’ve got so far, and feedback is always more than appreciated!!

(ALso I don’t know if you guys would prefer if I include the itch link in every update post, or if yall are fine going to the top post to get the link >~>)

Ok so I was able to recreate this bug easily, so I think I got an idea of what’s going on.

I’ve had this problem before, where the player won’t die if they reach 0 HP while in a transformed state, and I patched it thinking a dealt with it completely.
However, what seems to be happening here, is that the player being teleported to the waters surface seems to be canceling out the dying state (With a forced swim state). That’s why you are able to move around normally afterwards.
Also the getting stuck part was probably just poor raycast and collider placements, I should’ve tested all of the transformations to make sure they properly detect when the player is stuck.

This is super helpful though, I’ll look into it the next free day I get and see if I can fix it!

OOOUUGH THIS IS AMAZING!!! Thank you so much, I’m glad you enjoyed the update!! ^w^ <3

Updated the game to 0.1.41, just a small bug patch update fixing the issues above.

• The player will now be ko’d properly whenever they reach 0 hp and teleport to the water surface
• Transformed player cannot get stuck anymore, and clipping with the world will end transformation more reliably this time

So what happened, I could’ve just slapped some bandaid in the issue and got things working, but this bug revealed how much of a flaw there was with how I set up liquid detection in my game. So I just went ahead and reworked the whole deal, and now I don’t have to worry about this being an issue again.
However, there are other bits of codes that behaves similarly to the old liquid detection (forcing a state onto the state machine, regardless of any other conditions), and while they are not causing any issues at the moment, I’ll have to keep an eye out and see if any problems emerge from that.

Also, for getting stuck, I realized that what I had going at the moment was not going to work out. So I replaced it with another method, which seems to work way more reliably. Again, there’s the small possibility that the player will get stuck due to a forced state cancelling the transformation ending process, but we’ll see.

I was gonna wait to see if people found any more issues that needed to be dealt with, but I feel like this bug was problematic enough to where I just needed to fix it and get the bug-fixed version out there asap.

Little progress report to kick off November.

I got started one the third level, well, now I’ve completed a good chunk of it actually. Act 1 in this level is pretty much done(??), I’ll just have to see how everybody feels about it but it may need worked in the future (I think that could be said with all the levels in my game though).

I added a few variants of certain enemies, but the only new one so far is this snozzlenose dude. I’ve also implemented a new transformation, I just gotta do a little fine tuning to it but it’s mostly put together.

I feel like I’ve been on a good pace, hopefully I can get it done and out there this month. This level probably has the hardest platforming challenges yet, so it’ll be a good way to stress test the game so far.

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Version 0.1.5 is up now, and the WINTER level is now playable, with two acts (one of which needs to be unlocked).

So I had a choice to either hurry up and get it released now, or what another week to do some fine tuning. I chose to rush it out since I feel like this update introduced a couple things I’d like to get a second opinion about.

The Winter level is probably the hardest and longest level in the game so far, so I’m worried about if it’s too hard, or if the previous levels are too easy and basic in comparison.
I also wonder about if certain mechanics are too jank, or not fun, or so on.

Getting to hear everyones thoughts and feedback helps a lot, so that’s why I decided to release this level before setting anything in stone. I want to see what people think of this level and the game as a whole so far.

I was just sitting here thinking on how I could fix the balloon puppy, especially with him floating off and just bouncing away, and the image of tying the puppy down with a string appeared into my head LMAO. I’ve got an idea now on how I can keep the balloon puppy around, it’ll just be mechanically different, and hopefully more enjoyable to bounce on. ^w^

Yeah for sure, I thought that room was alright too, but I can definitely see some people getting stuck and frustrated with it. I’m just going to have to see what more people think of the level and some of the rooms before I decide whether or not to tone it down.

I dunno if you already beat the other act in this level yet, but the reactor near the beginning of the winter level has some challenging rooms too, you need to beat a specific act in the Autumn level to gain access to it though.
Either way, like you said, if that room gets removed, it can always show up somewhere else. There’s still two more levels after this one, and they’re gonna get more difficult. >:3

So I think at the moment, the biggest issue with the whole act thing is that there’s zero visual tellings of when and how you unlocked an act. It’s just a problem with the game not being finished yet, and won’t be an issue in the future.

So I don’t blame you at all for missing them. Honestly the next thing I should probably focus on is the stuff outside of the levels, and make it way more clear when you beat an act/level and what you unlock for it.