Gravity Circuit

[MrFariator]

The game's called Gravity Circuit. It has platforming, so it has something to do with gravity.



At the time of writing this, Gamescom 2022 is underway. At this event, we've finally let the cat out of the bag, and announced that I've been working under a publisher (PID Games) for a fair while. They've been great help in providing resources, and are helping me and others on my team to push the game towards the finish line. To accompany this announcement, the above trailer was produced, and a public demo was also prepared.

On Steam.

Main team contributors:
Dominic Ninmark - Music and sound effects, fair bunch of character design
BaconPal - Portrait art, cutscene art
Mae - Tilesets and backgrounds
VampireDev - Backgrounds
Koniworx - Tilesets and backgrounds

Also, key art by Jmanvelez.

[Rigachupe]

One good looking game.

[Hugues Ross]

Looks sick! Always cool to see really polished projects using Love.

[ReFreezed]

This is really nice! I tried the first demo level.

I feel like the wall jumping controls needs some tweaking. Specifically, there were many times I pressed right and jump to jump to the right, but hitting the wall first made me jump to the left, away from the wall, which is a bit counterintuitive. I'm also not a big fan of enemies that instantly respawn right outside the screen. For example, killing a ceiling enemy that shoots at the floor electrocuting it, jumping down a bit, jumping and dodging a projectile or something from a new enemy below, and getting shot by the ceiling enemy I just killed because it was outside the screen for one millisecond.

Other than that, the game seems quite solid.

[togFox]

nice! You must be busy!

[MrFariator]

A bit busy yes, but it's all good. At least this allows me to tweak some things, as opposed to release the full game cold-turkey, and have people raise concerns about this or that during a critical launch period.

Specifically, there were many times I pressed right and jump to jump to the right, but hitting the wall first made me jump to the left, away from the wall, which is a bit counterintuitive.

This seems to be a fairly common sentiment, and to explain about it a bit, here's how the ledge grab controls work:
- Jump + no direction: Straight vertical jump
- Jump + Any upwards vertical direction: Straight vertical jump, start moving in held horizontal direction
- Jump + Hold towards a wall: Wall jump
- Jump + Hold away from a wall: Straight vertical jump, start moving in held horizontal direction
- Jump + Any downwards vertical direction: Drop down. Start wall sliding if you hold a direction towards the wall.

Depending on if you play on more digital (keyboard, dpad) or analog (gamepad joysticks) input, the distinction between "hold towards a wall" and "hold any upwards vertical direction" can possibly feel harder to discern. Not entirely sure what the best course of action here is (A toggle option to prevent wall jumping during ledge grabs? Something else?), so this will need to be looked into.

I'm also not a big fan of enemies that instantly respawn right outside the screen. For example, killing a ceiling enemy that shoots at the floor electrocuting it, jumping down a bit, jumping and dodging a projectile or something from a new enemy below, and getting shot by the ceiling enemy I just killed because it was outside the screen for one millisecond.

This is indeed a thing that comes with the more retro style territory. I have been considering increasing the "respawn" radius, but haven't gotten around it yet. At least it's not as cruel as some NES games about it.

[MrFariator]

As a note (and as a rude double post), I've done some patches, and addressed the ledge grab + wall jump interactions. For a fuller list of changes, check here.

[ReFreezed]

The ledge grabbing is definitively better now. A lot less accidental jumping in the wrong direction. Just gotta be mindful of actually grabbing the ledge before jumping again.

I've been using the dpad on a PS4 controller, btw.

[MrFariator]

Additional fixes and tweaks have been applied to the demo (and production code, naturally). This includes making the enemy respawns less annoying, adding an easy mode toggle, further changes to ledge-grabbing and wall-jumping, among many other little things. See the Steam thread for a full list of changes.

This will tentatively be the final update to the demo, unless something breaks in horrendous fashion. Gotta work on the rest of the game, after all!

[MrFariator]

We announced yesterday that we'll be bringing Gravity Circuit to consoles too. Namely, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. To mark the occasion, we also created a new trailer, check it out below:



Since the demo went up, a whole bunch of gameplay tweaks and adjustments have been made. Not all of these have found their way back to the demo, but we'll likely update the Steam demo later down the line, closer to release.