Tile Tapper - Development Update (08-10-2019)

Hello! I have some updates I'd love to share with you all!

Over the past month I've been gathering parts to build my own PC that is going to be significantly faster than the old Acer Aspire E15 from before Windows 8.1 came out that I currently use. This means that development time should be quicker and I probably will be more motivated due to the faster load times.

In the meantime I've been planning out some features that I believe will pave the way for this little Piano Tiles-esque rhythm game to truly become its own and stand out from the crowd, and I couldn't be more passionate and excited to share my future plans! I've poured my heart and soul into this and it's truly a product of my own passion for rhythm games and game development as a whole!

So, emotional blabber aside, here are some of the features I've been planning! 

Starting off with... Lighting Groups!

You're probably thinking to yourself: What are Lighting Groups? Well here's a little image of a basic description of the feature I wrote on my Trello Page!:

Next feature I'd like to explain is known as Editor Layers! The basics of Editor Layers are that within the editor you will be able to assign objects to different layers where when that layer is selected only the objects in that layer can be seen. This is a good feature that can let you organize between a level's gameplay and decoration. Again taken from my Trello Page is the description I wrote explaining the Editor Layers feature in the Editor!:

Next is a feature that is actually not available on the Trello currently so I will write it out here for you all!

This is the official levels including the UI for the screen (I will release my concept art for the UI on Trello, look out for that!

The update will release with 1 official level, this level isn't guaranteed to stay and will be using a copyright free song for obvious reasons!

To give a hint as to what the UI will look like, I'll explain my thoughts!:

The bottom of the screen contains the Back button and the Info button.

Above those interactables is your progress, highscore, and max combo, just like the custom levels already present!

Above that is The Play button with text that is the name of the level itself

When you are on the menu for the level the main drop for the level's song will be playing, think of Beatsaber or Osu! to see what it may function like!

To the left will be a bar that shows the difficulty rating for the level. The color of this bar changes based on difficulty, this 1 official level will probably be around the middle difficulty range!

You will be able to swipe through to access other levels and the official levels probably won't be accessible by the player as I may want to implement special objects that the normal editor doesn't have (I'd like to refrain from doing this, however, as I absolutely adore the idea of players being able to use the same level editor the developer uses!)

With the introduction of official levels I will be removing all copyrighted songs from the game. However, this comes with a very good feature that's been planned from Day 0 of development. This feature is of course, custom songs! I have yet to work out a ton of details on how locating the song file will work but I plan to use the normal Android file searcher for it, and if that doesn't work, I can make my own!

This feature is literally in the name, when you make a level, pick an option called "Custom Song", find the file, and then your level will use that chosen song!

I'm very happy I've made it far enough into development to get to work on this feature!

Final Thoughts

I believe these features can finally improve the game to the point where I could officially consider it to be out of this little pocket of uncertainty and finally I'll be able to say it's a project I can finish. I'm so very happy to have started this and game development has been a passion of mine since being a child. I first picked up Unity 5 years ago and C# 3 and a half. My first game was a Text Adventure that I spent no time taking breaks on making. It took me 2 days but by the end of it I had something finished that I could call a game. I hope to do the same with Tile Tapper. I want to finish it, release it to the world, and hear what they think!

I wish you all the best! Have an awesome day!