Month: March 2013

Escape Goat 2 Logo

The final logo is here! Randy did an amazing job on this. Here’s a wallpaper which integrates some of the new gear elements he added earlier in the week. The text logo is featured on the all new EG2 T-shirt, which will be for sale very soon!

eg2_desktop_01_1440_900

(It took a lot of drafts to get the “2” just right. I think if I had asked for one more revision, Randy would have hired a band of assassins to take me away during the night.)

Secret Gears

Lots of great stuff done today on Escape Goat 2:

geardetail

  1. Randy drew some decorative background gears, and I hooked them up to operate alongside other machinery in the level. When a block moves forward, the gears turn clockwise, and when the block moves back, they turn counterclockwise again. Looks great in motion and has given my test levels a Metal Man vibe.
  2. Prototype gadget: Bone Block. Works like a bone wall (collapses when stepped on) but drops a full size stone block from its position. It also sets off neighboring bone blocks, creating a domino effect.
  3. Prototyped gadget: Valve Trap Door. Touched from one side, it springs open, then closes immediately after, trapping you or anything else on the other side. Can be used in all four directions to create one-way gates.
  4. Prototyped gadget: Mega Fan.  Creates gusts of wind that blow any creatures in specified direction. Will take some tuning, in first tests has ultra comical results, especially when used to launch the mouse.
  5. Switch and decoration fastening: Floor switches (and some decorations) are automatically fastened to moving blocks in the editor. This way, switches can be placed on gear blocks and elevators. Lots of new machinery possibilities with this.

Tomorrow I’ll put together a few more gadgets and build some test levels around them.

 

The Road to New Goats

Two weeks until GDC.  Most important remaining Escape Goat 2 features:

  1. Transition animations for goat (turning from side to side, jump to fall, fall to land, etc.). Randy has done drafts of some of these, I just need to add the logic to smoothly transition between them.
  2. Squish tolerance fix: creatures are still getting squished unexpectedly, the most problematic situation being coming out of a Magic Hat teleport. Since most teleports end with the goat intersecting with walls near the mouse’s original position, the game needs to resolve to a “safe spot” near the teleport destination. As any Escape Goat veteran knows, it’s possible to get crushed from teleporting into a narrow passage, but that should only happen when there are really no safe alternative spots nearby.
  3. New gadgets. I’ve got tons of ideas cooking, and hope to get some prototypes together starting tomorrow.
  4. New levels. They need to showcase the newest gadgets and visuals (such as lighting) but also provide player training. I have a new device for text-free tutorials I’ll be experimenting with.

The GDC demo should offer a solid 15 minute experience, tuned for showcasing rather than difficulty. The puzzles won’t be brain benders. They should be pretty similar to the first few worlds of Escape Goat 1.