Gameplay video #2

There it is! (If for some reason it isn't showing, check your adblocker - had some problems with Firefox and simple ad-blocker)

Read on for the details...

Even though we haven't yet decided what to actually name the contraption that the player uses, we have all of its functions ready and fired up! For the purpose of this blog, we'll simply call it ”Gravgun” for now.

When designing and coding the Gravgun, I've always tried to keep in focus that it has to be fun, versatile, and easy to use. We have finally reached the state where we can honestly say that its all of that. In the video you can see some of the core abilities of it and ways to use it.
For starters, in the first part you'll notice that the basic ”shoot” ability has remained somewhat the same from what you saw in our first pre-alpha video; you lift an object and tap on the enemy to hurl the object towards it. This function also has more of a puzzle-oriented use as well, since you can use it on the environment and collapse objects on enemies for example.

The second way to manipulate objects with Gravgun is to throw them to specific point in an arc. Again its designed to be as simple as possible, starting with choosing the stuff to grab and tapping the destination. If the destination is reachable, the object will find its way there. There is no need to rotate the player around yourself or choose angle or velocity, just pick an object and choose a target destination and watch it fly! We find that this goes very well with playing style of touchscreen devices, and makes it both fun and easy to use. Lots of tweaking still remains though; to find the balance between the speed of the player rotation, responsiveness and animation blending is a continuing process.

Lifting and manipulating objects is not the only thing you can do with Gravgun though, since it can also be used in a more defensive way by creating strong force field that reflects certain types of energy, like laser or plasma.

Shield in action

Both of these abilities can be used in different ways and we already have a nice collection of situations and puzzles where you, the player, must find the best way to use these.

All of the functions described above drain energy from the Gravgun, which is actually not unlimited as it might seem like in the video. The GUI work on it is still in progress, so we'll talk more about it when we can demonstrate it on another video. Of course we will have lots of other stuff to show you as well, including other abilities for player and Gravgun, the main characters of the game, enemies, puzzles and much more, so be sure to check back for more news of our progress!

-Timo