Hello everybody, my name is Michael Anderson, and I’m a programmer working on Curse of Janksbury, bringing you another blog post! I’m here to talk a bit about what went into making a functional Jank-gun for Marcus to use in the game, as well as provide some insight into designing part of the game’s second level.

The Jankify gun comes with two functions. The first is the ability to pick up and move certain objects, which our programming lead Jakob covered in a previous blog entry, and the ability to fire a projectile to alter the properties of specific objects in the environment as well as damage and defeat the enemies found throughout the levels. The team spent a good deal of time deliberating on how the gun should function, on topics such as whether it should fire a projectile that needs to move through the air, or a beam that would instantly hit whatever the player might aim at.  We settled on the former, having the gun shoot an energy projectile that collides with the environment. We chose this to make sure the gun is engaging and fun to use, while offering players an element of skill that rewards accuracy with their shots.

We also decided on giving the gun a limited pool of ammo to encourage players to be just a bit more careful with their aim, and to avoid players easily blowing through every enemy in the game. I think we’ve found a good balance where the gun’s energy regenerates very quickly, so as not to be too punishing, but wasting all available shots while fighting an enemy can lead to the player taking damage.

An example of the Jankify gun in action.

When I began tackling the implementation of the gun, I tested several different speeds for the projectile to travel at. While a high projectile speed was highly entertaining, it had the effect of heavily knocking back whatever it collided with, even to the point of sending an object to the other side of the level. I dialed back the velocity of the projectile, and I think I’ve found a sweet spot that’s fast enough to be satisfying, but slow enough that a stray shot won’t knock an important item out of the player’s reach. There’s even a little bit of knockback to the projectile, enough to make it still feel powerful.

Lately, I’ve also been working on expanding the second level of the game. This will include more puzzles to solve and enemies to fight, as well as some interesting new terrain to navigate. My goal with this area is to give the players something that builds off of and combines the individual mechanics they’ve learned to progress this far, while pushing them to think creatively to find the solution. Visually, I wanted to make something that’s instantly striking, and since the player travels through a relatively normal stretch of the road to reach this segment, jumbled buildings and a large chasm seemed pretty striking to me. It’s not finished yet, but it’s shaping up in a way I think players will enjoy.