You're back?

I'm older now. Did you wish me happy birthday?

It's odd to think that we're here, together; an infinitesimal chance. We walk arm-in-arm through time.

I just hope your back hurts less than mine.

Welcome back to

Leggy! the Miraculous Robotic Arm!

Leggy the miraculous robotic arm [is / will eventually be / might eventually be] a game about a robotic arm. It is a puzzle game featuring unconventional controls bearing more than a crumb of similarity to I Am Bread.

Forward Motion

If any concept were to be the theme for this sprint it would be time. There's never enough of that resource.

I'm proud to report that we were able to accomplish a significant amount in this stretch. Our 3D team has been working quickly, putting out some amazing stuff. Check out the texturing on Leggy!

Leggy & Gantry - Textured

Gantry - Textured

You'll note the pixelation on the gantry's wheels. This is a result of the texture crusher and is exactly the aesthetic we're aiming to emulate. Speaking of the texture crusher, for this sprint I worked on creating material samples for the art team so that they would have clear guidance on the results they should expect to see after using the tool.

Texture Samples

The 3D art team has expressed gratitude for these samples. They feel it's much easier to understand the goal aesthetic by being shown what the minimum amount of pixelation for each texture should look like.

Additionally and critically, by working more in depth with the downsampler tool I realized that it causes significant issues with normal maps and had to modify the tool to allow for that. Due to the amount of detail that normal maps convey I felt it was critical that they be downsampled as well, so I added a feature to the texture crusher tool set to accommodate them. We were also experiencing issues with the base color maps due to the posterization step. That step was simply removed since it did not actually contribute much to the final look.

Oz, Puller of Levers

Our level design team has really been doing a fantastic job. In the last dev log I mentioned we were getting started on something I've dubbed 'Oz Testing.' This is also known as 'man behind the curtain' testing and is based on a line spoken by the wizard of the titular city. In it, our level designers take the place of Leggy, moving their arm in response to the player's commands.

Oz Testing - Actions

The above image shows the list of actions available to the player. The playtester rehearses before the playtest to make their movements as consistent as possible in response to the player. I instructed our playtesters to not help the player by 'fudging' their movements to help when it seemed like they were 'close enough' to an objective. This is, of course, impossible to avoid doing in practice without a radical redesign of the testing setup (e.g. a blindfold on the playtest runner).

Oz Playtest Setup

Findings

One of the main downsides to having the playtest runner also act as the primary game interface is that the runner is unable to take good notes. I considered this prior to requesting they do Oz testing and felt it was still worthwhile. It does mean that these playtests were highly informal, improvisational, and lacking in measurable metrics. Playtest runners did report that players enjoyed themselves, understood what was expected of them, and were fully engaged with the experience during the entire test. Overall, I consider the Oz testing successful even balanced against the time commitment that was necessary to run them due to lingering slowdown issues in the production chain.

You can read more about the Oz playtesting process here.

Though Oz playtesting has proven useful, we're extremely glad to be so close to doing proper digital playtesting.

Leggy Interactions - Abstracted

Our programming team has made massive strides in overcoming the hurdles presented by the limitations of Unity's physics simulation system. As can be seen above, Leggy can now reliably interact with objects with only a minimal amount of clipping. We've since begun work on setting up the control system for Leggy's rig and next we'll be integrating the abstracted interaction system with the actual Leggy's claws.

Challenges & Solutions

During this sprint our largest challenge remained the issues we were having with Leggy's control systems. This has (mostly) been resolved due to the tireless efforts of our programming team. A special thanks must be extended to a few of the other teams who allowed their programmers to consult with us which allowed for a huge leap forward in our understanding of the issue. It was exceptionally gratifying to see a spirit of collaboration between teams and I'm deeply grateful to everyone involved. We're not out of the woods yet, but the end is in sight and the known obstacles appear surmountable. Thanks for reading, I look forward to walking with you again soon.