Hello everyone!

Wanted to share the newest Pingbert's Snow Ride progress and the start of a attempt to document the project's progress!

** Note that the gameplay music is not from the actual game's soundtrack, and rather the following playlist.

Here is a preview of the current gameplay as of right now! Many behind the scene work on the visuals and gameplay experience. Already have some feedback to address for the next devlog (please do share what you think though!) but I think there was a good amount of progress these past following weeks. You can take a look at some of the following developments in the video attached above.

Developments in the past two weeks:

• Large World Coordinatees: This might be a little too technical to start with but a huge improvement. There were some issues with physics being wonky after some playthrough time. This was finally discovered to be because Godot's physics get weird when the CharacterBody is away from the world's origin, or in other words have big number for coordinates. The game is meant to be infinitely procedural generated so this was a huge issue. However, the World Shifter-nator (not actual name) is now working and shifting the world and player seamlessly without the player even noticing! Testing this allows for consistent physics without the player even noticing!
• Checkpoints: Of course, the game wouldn't be fun if everytime you fell off you started from the very beginning which is why checkpoints are now implemented. These spawn separated on N terrain segments of separation (the number is subject to change, don't want them too separated but also not too many checkpoints). Visually I find them appealling. When Pingbert passes a checkpoint, the terrain behind him is cleared for performance sake.

• Music: Thanks to my previous posts, the first two songs for the game are now composed by NG contributors! Excited to share these songs and the credits to the authors once it's time (very soon). There is still some room for composers for the gameplay DnB songs though, so please hit me up if you are interested!
• Web Export: First tests for web version (which will be playable here on Newgrounds) have started. The game runs well for the most part but there are noticable lag spikes seems to mostly caused by particles. Plan is to reduce some of the visuals and particles so that the web version remains stable. Additionally, the shading and colors will be noticeably different to the desktop version because of the different renderer compatibility. This is unfortunate but the main gameplay will remain the same! Hopefully I can share some screenshots and videos of the web version in the next Devlog.
• Hit Impact: Minor but necesary detail. Pingbert now bounces back with animation when hit against a wall or a crate. The impact now feels more natural and gives a penalty to player for not dodging obstacles. Mainly just wanted to use the squeak sound effect (see video attached)

• Fog and terrain depth: Fog particles are now added to the bottom of the generated terrain! I think this looks much better than having nothing like before. Plus it gives the player a visual marker of where the death zone area is. Additionally, the terrain opacity gradient now has a alpha scissor effect instead of a simple gradient. Might tweak this in the future but think it fits the snow theme.

• Fall off death and animation: Related to the previous, but now players "die" when falling off to a certain height level (close to the fog level, or to be exact the current lowest terrain generated level). Even if Pingbert is gliding, once he goes below this level he is gone (unless he has extra lives!)
• Terrain Pop In Animation: Small detail, but generated terrain now has a "pop in" scale animation when generated instead of just awkwardly spawning out of nowhere. Planning to do the same for disapearing terrain.
• Terrain Segments Dynamic Angle: With all the previous nice additions and visual tweaks, now comes the next part of the project. Making the generated terrain more dynamic and more fun. The first change which can be seen on the video is that the tube angle of the terrain segments now change throughout the game randomly. This makes terrain much more dynamic than before. Similarly, plan is to do add more of these kind of variables to the terrain creator so that terrain better! Next task planned is dynamic width for the segments and more curve kinds.

As for the feedback I mentioned before, the ones I've received the most and planning to address:

• "Leap off ramps feels weird, almost like vertical velocity is reduces when leaping off"
• "Player can get a little too fast and far from camera"
• "Hard to know where I am supposed to go, can't see much with the current terrain and camera"
• "I want to see Pingbert enjoying himself more" (actually did get this lol)

While still far from a release, I do think the web version demo is getting close! I want to thank everyone for the feedback and comments so far. Excited to be able to release this hopefully soon, and in the meantime keep posting Devlogs! Probably biweekly. Hope in the next one I can share less technical updates and more exciting changes!

In the meantime if you haven't feel free to follow me here or my Twitter acc for updates.

That's it for now, have a good one!

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Into the dataverse 🤓☝️

Some footage of me testing collisions at high penguin speed that visually looked kinda cool for Pingbert's Snow Ride). Also I finally realized how to record high quality footage.

Posting a new Devlog in the following weeks by the way!

Hi Newgrounds!

I wanted to formally announce a small game I am developing called Pingbert's Snow Ride!

[Credits to PrimaRoxas for the logo!]

It's been in development for some time, and I've posted snippets on my Twitter account, but I've never officially announced it. It's a game I'm developing in my free time using Godot 4!

After using Newgrounds for a while, I feel like this is the right place to make announcements like this and hopefully continue posting dev updates.

Okay but what is it?

Pingbert's Snow Ride is a high-speed platformer snow sliding game where you control Pingbert, a mail carrier penguin whose job is to find and deliver mail across multiple mailboxes on a snowy mountain. The player must slide, jump, and glide through procedurally generated snow slides to deliver as much mail as possible without falling off.

Falling off will respawn the player at the nearest checkpoint, unless all available lives are lost! The score recorded upon losing will be a combination of mail delivered and distance reached.

Cool, but how does Pingbert control?

Pingbert can slide and turn. When going too fast, he can brake to prevent himself from falling off.

Pingbert can drift to make sudden turns, gaining a burst of speed the longer the drift is charged, similar to games like Mario Kart and Kirby’s Air Ride.

Pingbert can glide through the air to cross large gaps or save himself from falling off. However, this can only be done once per leap, and gliding is slower than leaping without the glider, so use it wisely!

Pingbert can spin while sliding, which allows him to break objects found during the game, such as crates. Destroying these will give you mail, and possibly other items! Additionally, spinning can be used for faster horizontal movement when sliding, similar to strafe controls.

Pingbert can also dive on air, kind of like a ground pound. This allows you to quickly drop to the ground so you don't miss a platform!

Procedural Generation?

The slides are procedurally generated with dynamic properties such as varying dimensions, angles, border radii, and other planned features. This ensures that gameplay is unique in every playthrough! It will take some time to fine-tune this process to prevent unfair terrain generation or strange shapes. What you see now is already procedurally generated, and the final game will be even more dynamic!

What's next?

• New crate items/effects
• Big update on level generation
• Achievements/Medals
• Visual improvements
• SFX (initiated but not completed)
• Music (see Help Needed section)
• Main game state (game over screen, title screen, options, etc.)
• High score saving
• Upon losing or quitting, mail score is converted into coins
• Coins can be exchanged for new costumes
• Special Stages (to be elaborated in the future)

! Help Needed !

I am currently looking to collaborate with musicians for this project.

My vision for the game's soundtrack is something that feels like Y2K Drum 'n' Bass Atmospheric/Jungle (probably not the best way to describe it) to match the high-speed gameplay. If you think you have some ideas for this, I would love to talk!

These contributions would be paid and credited in-game. I'm open to discussing the details, so if you're interested, please send me a DM!

Demo plans

While Godot has some web export limitations , and it's likely the demo web version won't perform as well as the desktop version, my plan is to create a small playable vertical slice demo of the game here! This way, I can gather feedback on the controls and visuals (minus effects that aren't supported in web exports) before the actual release.

I would also like to integrate some medals into the demo, though I don't have experience with this, so I'll probably ask for some help.

Thanks for reading!

That's it for now! Please let me know if you have any feedback and ideas that you think would help the game. And if you haven't and want to know more updates, feel free to follow me!