Hi everyone!

Winter is here, and so is a brand-new devlog update! It’s been a while, but I’m excited to share some progress and updates for the game!

Footage

Trees

Point Rings

What's new?

• Ramps, slopes, and walls: These features are now procedurally generated and seamlessly snapped to the terrain surface! Their dimensions include random variations, adding a unique touch to the terrain in every playthrough. The primary goal of these structures is to introduce verticality and obstacles to the game. Pingbert can use ramps to launch into the air at high speed. Mail points are strategically placed along the paths of generated ramps and slopes, rewarding those who slide through them. I’m also planning to add even more structures in the future to further enhance the diversity and uniqueness of level generation.
• Point Rings: These can now spawn at random and when passed through by Pingbert triggers a chain of timed rings. Pingbert must go through these in time in order to get a reward. The player will need to be quick and get them in order!
• Trees: Been looking foward for these and finally added generated pine trees! These also have some variety so they don't look like massive copy pasting. Main purpose of these trees mechanically are just obstacles. But visually, I think it adds a lot of life into the game's visuals. The world doesn't feel as empty now I feel. Proud of the wind shader that manipulates the tree's transform.
• Control Support: Pingbert is now playable with controllers! Even has rumble (will be toggable in the future) when smashing through crates!
• Visuals: Colors and shading adjusted for better visual clarity. Glow was too excessive on previous versions so hopefully this makes it better for some monitors.

Art

• Pingbert has new cute pixel art icons used in the game, done by @vtncomics. Thank you again!

Music

• @Dynamic0 composed 'Snow Wandering' for the game🎵, thank you again!

What's next?

While there are many other gameplay mechanics planned, the focus now is on implementing the core gameplay loop (such as fall-off logic, game over mechanics, and the main menu). This is because I’m preparing to release a playable demo for playtesting soon! While the demo will lack many features and the polish of the final game, I believe it’s a great opportunity to gather feedback on the overall game feel. Your input will be invaluable for shaping the final game.

To make this playtest as accessible as possible, I’m experimenting with Godot’s web export. However, as I’ve mentioned in previous devlogs, this approach comes with certain limitations, and there’s a chance it might not work out. Regardless, I’ll do my best to make it happen! My goal is to release a demo on Newgrounds, complete with medals and leaderboards, which I think would make it even more engaging.

On another note, many have asked about Steam Wishlist. The Steam page is currently in progress, actually it's already created and approved just in private. I’m holding off on promoting it because I’d like to add marketing videos and images to make it more appealing before sharing the link. I’m torn about the timing—on one hand, I’ve heard it’s good to promote Wishlists as early as possible, but on the other, it might be too soon. For now, the plan is to share it when the playtest demo is released. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!

Contributions

Right now I am mostly looking for artists that would be willing to be commisioned for promotional artwork for the game!

Additionally, I am looking once again for musicians for gameplay music. And also sound designers for some sound effects.

If you are interested in any of these categories, please send me a DM!

That's it for this Devlog! I hope I can keep creating these more frequently and that for the next Devlog I have a deliverable playtest! As always, please let me know any feedback and requests that you have for the game!

Thanks for reading! Hope you are staying warm and comfy!

   _
 ('v')/
// = \
(\_=_/)
 ^^ ^^