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Happy Monday! Today, I wanted to zoom in on a system that drives the push and pull of our bullet hell, keeping things exciting: bullet spawning! ^_^
This bullet-spawning system took a month of on-and-off work designing and implementing it. The exact details of implementation are still subject to polish, BUT I think it would be cool to discuss the broad details of how it works! So without further ado:
Bullet Spawning
Bullet spawning is powered by four layers of objects, each of which spawns one or several instances of the next.
- The Bullet Hell Manager is the highest-level director of bullet hell segments. Creates a random Wave, destroys it after 10 seconds, and creates a new one. Mixing up the waves creates variety!
- Wave Objects represent different bullet patterns. They create Spawners with unique positions, rotations, and spawning behaviors.
- Spawner Objects spawn bullets in specific patterns. Some spawn multiple bullets at once, some spawn bullets in sequence, some spawn infinitely until their Wave is destroyed. :O
- Bullets move across the Field and interact with the player avatar, Ava. Different bullets move differently!
A wave and bullet-spawning in motion! Spawners are displayed as yellow orbs.
Wave Tour
Let’s take a brief look at a few Waves and how they work!
Free-for-All
The Free-for-All wave is a basic type where spawners place single bullets which travel straight towards Ava. This is the wave type that was present in the beta!
Free-for-All!
Trains-of-Thought: Columns and Rows
Trains-of-Thought are a class of wave types where bullets travel in groups called ‘trains’! Trains have target bullets in the center (the ‘cargo’), nontarget bullets on the outside (the ‘engine’ and ‘caboose’), and random bullets in between. In the Columns and Rows subtypes, trains move in straight lines, encouraging you to weave in between to capture target bullets without getting hit!
Column Trains (left) and Row Trains (right).
Trains-of-Thought: Zig-zags and Snakes
In these waves, instead of moving in straight lines, trains change directions! Getting targets and dodging nontargets becomes more of a challenge as you predict where the train will move next.
Zig-zag Trains (left) and Snaking Trains (right).
Trains-of-Thought: Fans
Fans is a wave type which builds off the principle that different bullets move at unique speeds. By spawning different types in short succession, each ‘round’ of bullets can overtake the others as they fan out across the field!
Fans!
Alright, that’s all for today! Take care everyone, and have a lovely week :3
Take care!
— xoxo Dylan, team Point Point ^_^
Hey gang! After a short hiatus, we're back to inform you that Point Point has now expanded! In order to distribute a little bit more of the workload, we have added 3 new people to our team. To get to know them a smidge more, we've had them fill out a short questionnaire. Now it's time to say hello to Annalivia Martin-Straw, Sophie Martin, and me Athena Patronas.
Annalivia Martin-Straw
Why did you get involved with point point?
"I got involved with point point after the leads asked me to join their team! I’m excited to contribute more work to the project."
Other favorite current/past projects?
"Right now, I’m working on a game called Encryption Fantasy! It’s a cyberpunk top-down shooter about two loser girls who take down a megacorporation."check out the webgl build here
What inspires you?
"Game artifacts as art. Semiotics of fan culture. Shovelware games."
What would you do if you had a clone of yourself?
"Sing two-part harmonies with her that I couldn’t do alone!"
Sophie Martin
Why did you get involved with point point?
I officially became involved in Point Point around January of 2023, although I had been helping out previously in small amounts previously, mostly through design advice. As such, when I was brought on to help with Point Point officially it was mostly related to design, although I also help out with programming and sound. I think the project is a super interesting concept, and the original prototype was extremely impressive to me given the constraints it was built under, and I wanted to help aid its creation in the ways that I could.
Other favorite current/past projects?
I think currently, the project I’m most proud of is the (currently unnamed) album I’ve been workin on over the past few months. It’s a sorta shoegaze/noise rock/ambient project and I’m super excited to be able to share some of my work with it soon! The second single from the album, The Long One, will be releasing soon so look out for that! Otherwise, I’m extremely happy with Dracomaton, the senior capstone project I’m currently a designer/composer/sound designer on. It’s a top down shooter bullet hell roguelike about switching between different movesets during combat, also featuring gay robot dragons!
check out the itch page here
What inspires you?
Audio wise, a lot of my inspirations come from a combination of early 20th century classical composers, such as Stravinsky, Ravel, and Boulanger, as well as more modern experimental electronic and noise music. This kinda stuff tickles my brain like nothing else, and even when writing in completely different styles I still take a large amount of influence from these movements and the way they approach texture in music. Otherwise, I try to also take a lot of influence from the natural world and just, the pretty special things which happen when you walk in a direction and see what’s there. When I’m not working on games, I’m often exploring the areas around where I live, and finding new things there each time.
What would you do if you had a clone of yourself?
Make them do my work so I can do double the work. Eventually our life paths will diverge enough to where we are entirely distinct people, at which point I’d simply get another clone.
Athena Patronas
Why did you get involved with point point?
I was pitched the game premise and immediately I was obsessed! I thought the art direction was cute and found the game’s story relatable so I really wanted to help contribute to it’s creation in anyway I could!
Other favorite current/past projects?
Aside from "How Do I Say This", I've been mainly working on a few game projects for school. My favorite side project is this endless runner about a gritty hamster vs snake war! To get the vibe, our tagline is "In the grim darkness there's no respite—only the eternal struggle between hamster and snake, where war is hell, and every battle could be your last." It's a remarkably amusing premise that is just a delight to design.
What inspires you?
I’d have to say my greatest source of inspiration stems from webcomics! I adore slice of life’s and silly romance plots with all my heart. I love seeing the different styles, and being able to in real time watch them slowly improve their art! It’s remarkable!!
What would you do if you had a clone of yourself?
I’d kill it. Having a clone of myself would freak me out so bad!
Thank you to everyone who has been following the development of "How Do I Say This" thus far, and to those who are new, it's nice to meet you! Expect more updates from us soon. Have a great rest of your morning day or night and we'll see ya again soon!!!
— best regards Athena, team Point Point ^_^
Howdy y'all! Hope your holidays were lovely, filled with good food and a manageable amount of (or lack of) family time! Due to some factors surrounding family time and illness, we weren’t able to make as much progress on How Do I Say This… as we initially planned over the break, but we’re back on things now!
The two major things we’ve gotten done over the past month or so have been formalizing the mechanics of the main bullet hell segments, and reimplementing our conversation scenes. So, in order:
Bullet Hell Design
While alright for a school project– especially one with as many limitations as we had– the bullet hell featured in the demo felt pretty same-y over time, lacking internal consistency (like an apple that’s a bit too soft). Thus, in our continuing development, one of our main focuses is making gameplay feel dynamic and engaging.
To this end, we’ve designed a few extra mechanics and systems into our bullet hell loop, including a bunch of new waves and bullet patterns which randomly shuffle. No more dealing with only random single bullets!
Take a look at a diagram from our big design doc showing the original game loop and a secret new game loop that came out of some of these new mechanics!
Of course, we can’t show everything off just yet. ;3
Conversation Scenes
In the original How Do I Say This…, we knew we wanted a story focus, and wanted cutscenes to show Quinn’s journey. For reasons related to Construct 3 and event limits, though, we had to get creative in how we were displaying them. We ended up using animated cutscenes with textboxes, a solution which meshed well with the dictionary-based approach we were already using to store data.
In our reimplementation though, with event restrictions lifted, we wanted to render cutscenes in game! I’ve spent the last week working on a shiny new dialogue system using Unity’s Canvas, which I think I’m starting to get the hang of, LMAO
We’ve just got placeholder assets at the moment, but check it!
Not pictured: different aspect ratios. Using the Canvas, I was able to make sure that the text boxes always spawn in the right places and stay there, even when the window is resized in real time! Flexibility was a priority :O
That’s all for today. So long everyone, and have a good week!
Peace out!
— xoxo Dylan, team Point Point ^_^
Hello everyone! Happy Sunday. ^_^ This is going to be less of a progress-showcase devlog, since we've been taking some time to enjoy our winter vacation, and since most of our work this past week has been less flashy and more foundational. We’ve been working out layouts for the bullet hell, and developing new systems to make the moment-to-moment gameplay more engaging. Important work! But work that’s not quite ready to show off yet.
Instead, we’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to our main character: drumroll please… Quinn!
See, we told you we’d name them. ;)
How Do I Say This… is the story of Quinn discovering their queer identity, and so a lot of things change over the game’s course. To keep things simple (and to save some developments for later), we’ll focus on who they are as we begin the story!
Quinn is a 14 year old living in the suburbs of a midsized, midwestern American city. They like hot chocolate, collecting keychain plushies to hang off their backpack, and playing bullet-hell-roguelikes. An ironic poster of a boyband from before they were born hangs up over their bed: a gift from a shitty Christmas gift contest with their online best friend. Quinn has spent their summer break mostly inside, playing video games like Star Islands! A Seaborne Adventure and Intercell 2 (and — when their mother leaves for work and Quinn gets the apartment to themselves – working up the willpower to do their chores).
Quinn’s design has already gone through a few changes (and undoubtedly will go through more), but compared to the beta we wanted to emphasize their journey throughout the story. They begin wearing deliberately plain clothes, uncomfy with expressing too much of themselves; as they learn about and grow more certain of their queerness, Quinn starts to wear louder outfits, and begins to show more of their passions to the world!
Alright, that's all for now! Thanks for reading :3
Special thanks to Alex for drawing all the images of Quinn :O
So long, so far!
— xoxo Dylan, team Point Point ^_^
Howdy y’all! Welcome to Point Point’s first devlog for How Do I Say This…, a story-based bullet hell about coming out and discovering one’s identity — then doing it all over again. :3 We’ve (Alex and Dylan) been working on the game for a while and have quite the backlog of progress documentation — so we figured to put it all together and release weekly snapshots of our development all newsie-style.
How Do I Say This… was first made in winter 2022 as a final project for a game design class we had together. We liked the idea and its potential so much that in the summer the two of us got together and set off on making version 2.0. We’ve been working on it ever since!
The beta version was made in four weeks with the absolutely free version of Construct 3. This was- limiting, but it was required for the project. And we made it fit! Somehow.
We’ve spent the last five months remaking, revising, and extending the beta, this time using Unity. As of now, we have a polished bullet hell environment, an brand new art direction, a revised story, a shiny new powerup system, and lots more!!!
The two of us took a break from active development for the past month to do some behind-the-scenes work. (Especially of note, Dylan spent some good time learning HTML and CSS to build the website you’re on now! Hella kudos!) Now with a beefy production calendar in hand, we’re aiming to finish the bulk of development this upcoming Winter quarter and release the game this Spring.
Coming off the trails of holiday season pt. 1 this past week, we’ve spent some time finalizing our production calendar, preparing for the launch of this very site, and—since you’re reading this—getting our first devlog together! Intense production takes a backseat while we knuckle through finals.
Let’s chat future plans! Now that we’ve solidified our calendar, we’ve got a good idea of what we need to work on. Over the course of the next week, we plan to:
- Design and redesign our different bullet types and how they behave
- Implement a basic conversation scene between our protagonist and a close online friend
- Give them names 🥴
- Revising our overarching story structure!
Thanks so much for reading and being interested in the project! We’re very excited to get this publicly off the ground. Check back on this website every Sunday for weekly updates, and consider following us on Twitter! (Or just find us here! Twitter maybe isn't too hot right now.)
Take care,
— xoxo Alex + Dylan, team Point Point <3