Here is my first digest of what has been going around the development of Crumble in the last weeks!

LAVA LEVEL

The lava level was redesigned a bit, I even made a new custom lava shader that reacts to the environment pretty well and a script that simulates physics over water or lava material. (This will be covered on the devlog)

Here is a sneak peek of what it would be like gameplay-wise:

ROCKET LEVEL TRANSITION

This one I’m pretty excited about, I took inspiration from how Spyro handles level transition and did my own with a rocket. So there is NO loading screen and it’s all smooth from level A to level B!

You can rotate the rocket with the joystick if you just want to fly among the clouds.

This was challenging to make with additives scene loaded in async inside Unity but I finally got it right. This will also be featured and explained later on how to load level in async while keeping important data such as the player or the score!

Here is a simple curvature shader that deforms geometry based on camera distance. It’s very common use in mobile endless runner games.

TONGUE HOOK REWORKED

It was a popular demand from demo players to have the hook mechanic reworked a bit and so I did 2 important changes.

First of all, I added a preview of where the feedback of the tongue might snap-on, to help the player navigate and react correctly. This may be hidden further on as you progress through levels.

And the second change was the mechanic itself. I added more raycast to be sure the player doesn’t miss one possible spot and made it more responsive to the player inputs as well as more permissive.

Here is a video of me testing the changes:

FARTING MUSHROOMS

No one asked for it, but you get it anyway. You now have the possibility to squish the mushrooms in Crumble to make them… fart!

It might sounds familiar because these are the same mushrooms as in Sheep It in the 44 LDJAM:

WHAT’S TO COME?

I am working on polishing everything I already have for a special Beta release of Crumble for very close people!

Right now I am polishing the start menu and I thought of something very original and immersive; you will have a menu in space with planets in the distance which will be the level selection and when you choose a level, the player will jump inside the rocket and prope himself to the selected planet! As you can see I’m taking this smooth gameplay very seriously, I want the player to feel immersed in my world and to find a deep connection with the arcade gameplay I’m offering inside a beautiful world.

I have a special mention to make for my Gamejolt page for Crumble: https://gamejolt.com/games/Crumble/413270

You can follow the development of my game there as well!

Don’t forget to wishlist the game, if you want to help me that’s the BEST WAY: