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Sep 87 min read

Piggy Payback! | Back In Action

What is new, my people?! We’re back to it after a health scare I recently had. I was in the hospital for almost a week, and recovering for quite a while, so we had to put the project on hold for a bit. But we’re fully back in development now and excited to share with you all the things we’ve been adding to Piggy!


Big news! We’ve started work on the Piggy Drip album! The hip hop album for Piggy Payback! Check out these sick tracks at:

We’re adding new tracks all the time, so check it out now!




In addition to this, we've released a children's book in the same universe as Piggy. It's called Clementine In A China Shop. You can find the link to the ebook below, and we will soon have the picture ebook up as well. We plan to write more kids books in the near future under the publisher, Dream Makers' Guild.


Okay, let’s talk about the game.



To begin, we added a few particle systems to the 3D main menu level. For those who don’t know, particles are assets in a video game that consist of many moving parts. Examples would be smoke, fire, rainfall, and so on. In the menu level, we added a group of butterflies flying above the main pig, some fireflies above the river, and some birds way above circling the level. This is to enforce the idea that the birds are the bad guys in Porkfeather Junction.




We’ve updated the end screen for when the player’s game is over. We have a progress bar that adds up your points, and displays any egg gems you’ve earned. As the points bar passes that egg gem, it pops up. This screen still needs a lot of work, but we like where its heading.


Some settings we’ve adjusted:

- Audio settings now load whenever a level starts

- Added resume and main menu buttons to settings widget

- Plans to add a master volume to the settings screens

- Fixes to the code that used to result in bugs with rapid button presses


We’ve finished the one way volumes in the levels. These allow the pig to only pass through them in one direction. These are used to allow a pig to pass through an area in one direction, but if it tries to get back through in the opposite direction, it gets blocked.


We also modeled a pathway for the one way volume. This is a metal pathway with blinking arrow lights running along it. We think it looks pretty good, but we may end up creating a new one for the final release.



The TNT crates are now animated! When you hit one, your pig bounces off it and it starts moving to show that it’s about to explode. It also has a countdown timer. Once it hits 0, the TNT crate explodes. Once finished, the TNT crates' explosion will destroy your pig, so watch out! ⚠️


As you can see in the previous video, we finally finished and added the brand new follow camera to each level. Now, instead of a zoomed-out static camera that doesn’t move, the camera is zoomed in a little bit, and follows the pig around the level as it bounces about. The entire game feels different now, in a very good way. It feels like a much higher level game now. We’re extremely proud of our team! his is one of the biggest things we’ve done lately. This was in response to a common concern from the playtesting of the alpha. Players felt that the camera was too far away and everything looked too small. In our beta demo, we will ask if players think we should zoom the camera in more. 🎥 We're very excited to finally release this beta demo!


🐞We were getting this really annoying bug recently which would destroy the pig and end the turn as soon as you launched the cannon. We were racking our brains trying to figure out why this was happening. We finally discovered that the velocity check we do constantly to know when the pig should be destroyed and the turn should end, was being done the instant the pig spawned, before it was even moving. So it would destroy the pig instantly. We’re very happy to say we solved this bug and can move onto the rest of the infestation!



One of the cooler things we’ve done lately is we added a new power widget bar for the cannon. 💪 It’s still a placeholder for now, as we plan to create a combination power select and aim widget in one after the beta demo, but it looks pretty good and will do for now. So before you launch your pig, you drag up and down along the power bar to choose your launch power. Then press the launch button and get ready for some ricochet action!







We’re also very excited because we’ve decided to implement a rudimentary version of the special move system in the beta demo we’ll be releasing hopefully early next year. 🌟 That’s not very far away! We have a progress bar at the bottom of the screen that fills up as you score points. The faster you score points, the bigger increase in fill speed. Once full, this will engage your special move (passive) or unlock the special move button (active), depending on that pig’s move. The one we plan to include in the demo is Jumbo George and his power slam. Every time he hits a surface, there is a chance that he will use his power slam move. This creates an air warp effect around him, and allows him to squash any bird or egg within his vicinity. It effectively makes his ‘hitbox’ larger when that move is engaged. We’re hoping to eventually have a roster of piggies, each with their own special move, as well as the ability to unlock 3 levels of each move. Each level more powerful than the last! So keep your eyes here to find out more! 


One of the back end things we did is we created the code that allows the game to save Piggy points and PXP (Piggy eXperience Points) across all levels and screens. So now, no matter what you do, your progress is saved.


🖲We’ve also been perfecting the physical buttons found in the different levels. It takes a bit of work to make them function properly since there can be multiple buttons in the same level all working toward one or several mechanic actions, and all of the buttons’ presses need to add up together. We haven’t yet finished this system, but we’re getting close. We’ve added a yellow electricity particle to all the buttons, and a blue one to all mechanics that are affected by buttons, so you will know what the button does when you see it.



We’ve also nearly completed the pop-up points for when you score points. So when you squash a bird or egg, or spin a spin-gate, etc., the points you score will float upward from that mechanic. It looks pretty cool so far. We have to build a completely different system for the spin gate as these pop-up points have to spawn very fast since the gate can be spun super fast. We’re getting there!


🪙We’ve now got both currencies working and saving across all levels and screens! In the beta demo we will just be using Piggy Points for everything, but in the final release, we will also have Boar Bucks which will be used for all cosmetic items. 


We’ve now got the local high scores working and saving. The game will now know what your best score is on every level, and save it. It stores it in the box for each level in the Level Select screen, as well as for the end screen when your try is over.


We created a new header widget for the different screens. Now we can just change the text and the icon for each one, depending on which widget we place it in.



❗️Finally, we’re getting very close to publishing the Steam page we’ve been working very hard on. It’s looking really nice and we can’t wait to show you guys! We just have a few details to work out. We may end up making the beta demo before we launch the Steam page, but we haven’t come to a conclusion on that yet. But stay tuned here to find out when the Piggy Payback! Steam page is live!


We've learned that losses are a part of life. No matter who you are, you have to deal with things you didn't expect that ruin your day. But we've been saying to ourselves one thing everyday.


"No matter how bad it is, or how bad it gets, I'm going to make it."


I personally have faced a lot in the last decade of my life. Including becoming disabled and a lot of things related to that whole event in my life. At first I was down on myself. I asked "why me?" and said "this isn't fair". But I've since learned just how lucky I really am. Because no matter how bad it is, or how bad it gets, there are many people out there who have it much worse than you, and are doing just fine. They make do. We all have to just make do with the hand we were dealt. Because, what's the alternative? NEVER QUIT.


A person who is willing to fight is much more powerful than a person who has the ability to fight.


Thanks for reading, and make this day a great one.


 

💪"The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried." – Stephen McCranie


Every loss is a step closer to mastery—keep playing, keep improving.

 



 
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