Restitched: Trailer Feedback Update

Hello, Stuffies!

After our Official Trailer premiered one month ago, we've been reading your comments and feedback on the game's footage. We've noted down the most common concerns and are starting to address them as we return from a nice holiday break!

Restitched has changed a lot over its 3+ years of development. Because we are constantly reworking major fundamental systems, mistakes and pesky bugs often slip through.

In this post, we'll be looking over frequently-seen concerns and explain our plans and in-progress work to address them. Our goal is to create the best game we can, and your constructive criticism is a major part of that process!

Floaty Physics / Gameplay

Many of you noted that the physics seemed "floaty" with Stuffy's gameplay in our trailer footage. This is the case for several reasons:

• We've recently introduced a new "Gravity X" and "Gravity Y" slider, and these values are serialized (saved) directly into the level's settings data. While we have since increased the gravity scale on a project-wide level, these existing saves used for the trailer footage are unaffected until a coder can retroactively patch them.

• Visuals play a huge role in the perception of floatiness. In gameplay, this is much less noticeable than in footage. We're in the middle of an animation and player upgrade, so the airborne animations were unfinished and not fully implemented. Adding our new animations and polishing their blending is expected to add more 'weight' to the look and feel of the game.

• Our trailer's editing features speed-adjusted clips, which also play a role in the perception of low gravity.

• The player's physical component (rigidbody) hasn't had its Mass value increased, despite our change from 2D to 3D physics in the past.

• The player's 'controller' script hasn't had its values tweaked for the perfect balance of mass, steering, and force. The player's gameplay coding has been and will continue to be a huge priority this year.

What we're doing to address floaty physics, and what's already been done:

• We've increased the Mass of the player character object, adding more force when interacting with other physics objects.

• We've experimented with shrinking the player by ~10%, which potentially helps to balance their interaction with objects in a level... and helps depth judgment when jumping between platforms as a good side effect.

• We are consolidating a newer experimental movement script with the original player controller. This means improvements across the board with how Stuffy feels to play, how they behave on slopes, and the way their force, inputs, and movement are applied. This is a very sensitive area to develop and will take time before we can share results.

• The Needle 'n Thread (N&T) mechanic will continue to be polished and refined, adding better visuals and weight when swinging.

• We've increased the gravity value on a project-wide scale, which adds more weight to all objects and the player. As a result, the max jump height is also slightly decreased so Stuffy feels heavier and sharper to control.

As you can see, we've been busy exploring solutions to your feedback and improving the gameplay in a subtle but important way!

We want Stuffy to feel snappy, nimble, and responsive. However, we also want a sense of weight and polish, and a grace period for player intention (like steering in the air during long jumps).

Animation Stiffness

We've seen comments stating that Stuffy feels too rigid, especially while airborne or in combat. The good news is that we're aware of these issues and have already created new animations and plans, even before the trailer. It's important to note that combat was not fully ready by the time of the footage recording.

When slashing enemies, the Needle isn't obvious enough. To address that, here's what we're trying:

• Trying new metal shaders and textures that make the needle stand out more.

• Adding a slash effect particle when swinging the needle.

• Adding new slash animations that extend further away from Stuffy and with more emphasis and emotion.

• Adding a chain-attack system that supports combos, to avoid repetition and offer more satisfying player input.

• Increasing the size of the needle if it's not clear enough after other improvements.

The airborne animations are a bit stiff and unpolished. Here's what we're doing to help:

• We've created new animations for various in-between states. Airborne falling, jumping, landing, and more.

• The animations will blend more by velocity (or other factors), rather than only looking at whether or not Stuffy is in the air. This should make Stuffy react more in the air depending on whether they're heading upward or downward.

• Increasing the speed between animations, ensuring they blend quicker and feel more responsive and realistic rather than slow and stiff.

Thank you so much for your support and comments! 

This is only a small step in our effort to improve things, and we thought you'd enjoy this little update to be reassured that your concerns aren't falling on deaf ears!

We're also looking at other feedback, too. We will continue to polish the game as usual and are still very excited to be creating the game openly alongside you all! We'll have lots more to share as we get back into the flow of things...

Keep an eye out for our Restitched: Recapped! posts, where we'll share more in-depth progress on development each month!