Dev Blog #13 — Combat Upgrade, Animation Pipelines and Closed Alpha Testing
Welcome to Devblog #13! It’s a big one! We’re in the final sprint before Pixl Pets combat enters closed alpha testing and a lot has been happening behind the scenes.
Today we’re previewing the major revisions to the Combat system and showcasing the significantly improved animation pipeline. We’ll also be setting expectations for how and when combat testing will roll out over the coming months.
Before we get into the good stuff, here’s a list of general updates, backend and UX improvements!
EOY-JAN2023 General Updates
Move tool & State Machine
> New Target reference system to cover in-game edge cases introduced by combat rework
> Backend behaviours refactored to account for the above change
> Move Energy requirements in new React phase added
> Custom flag behaviour for new interactions enabled by combat system changes
> Enabled Additional/secondary actions associated with specific Moves
> Transition from dev to main branch, read from database rather than local jsons
> Refactored minor sections of code to reduce complexity
> Plenty of local test bug fixing
UX/UI
> Cast arrows added for specific types of Move targetting
> Created fundamental order of actions in new combat system
> Player prompts for each action implemented
> Combat timeline preview added (see image below)
> Game results window added
Effects
> Effect Handler implemented
> Tile & 'From pet -> To Pet' Effect types implemented
Audio
> General sound system implemented
> Placeholder music and sfx for basic interactions added
Environment
> Test arena reshaped
> Adjusted colours and applied shaders
> Additional environmental details added
Camera
> New camera behaviours designed and implemented for different tiers of MovesRigging & Animation Pipeline
We have ambitious goals for a truly generative breeding system that can create Pets of novel size, shape and skeleton without the use of fixed basic template models e.g. one base skeleton for all ‘bird’ type Pets with variety introduced only via layering a fixed pool of cosmetic traits on top.
Having custom generative skeletons poses challenges to the entire animation process. The vast majority of games establish and codify skeletons very early on in the development process before going on to create animation routines that are rigidly tied to these pre-fabricated skeletal structures. In our case, animations must be applicable to Pets of unknown shape that are yet to exist.
Although uncommon, this is far from uncharted waters in game development! Thankfully, it’s possible to create animations that exist independently from any particular skeleton and use animation retargeting to apply animations to general bodies of the correct approximate shape and size. We’ve created and are continuing to develop our own proprietary pipeline for this purpose.
The overall result of this is that we can rig and animate new models significantly faster than is normal, which opens up room for every Pet to better express itself in-game with a wider variety of behaviours, bringing more life to the Pixl Pet world.
Effect Manager
With our effect manager up and running it’s now easier than ever for us to pump out all the animations the game needs for its core loop. Our goal is to have a strong enough UX/UI that it is only a minor focus of testing from the get-go, allowing Players to focus more on the gameplay loop and balance. That being said, we still expect to iterate on UX/UI extensively after testing begins.
Combat Upgrade
Pixl Pets Combat has received a major revamp, and, although we didn’t expect to make such large changes this far along in development, we couldn’t be happier with the result. Let’s delve into exactly what the changes are, and why we’re heading in this direction.
The Core Loop
This is the basic formula for games with ‘simultaneous turn-based’ combat systems and was also the basis for Pixl Pets Combat. It’s been around for a very long time and, although it is familiar to players and has been the foundation of major gaming IPs, it is painfully basic and struggles to keep players’ attention in a modern climate.
After significant internal testing, we’ve decided to break away from this model in favour of something more complex that’s better able to achieve our core goals for Pixl Pet PvP that have been consistent since the game’s conception:
To explore the competitive potential of the simul-turn Pet battler genre. Other titles in the genre lean heavily on the wider world to prop up the combat experience, this effect should be recognized and utilized but not relied upon to the same extentTo strike a healthy balance between strategy and yomi, redressing the balance between the building of a strategy (typically favoured in turn-based games) and the piloting and execution of that strategyFor every match to include several critical decisions for each player, focusing on increasing Player agency every turn and increasing the ability for players to out-play one another, avoiding frustrating situations where a match feels lost long before it ends
Our goal has always been to create a combat experience somewhere between a Deckbuilding card game and a Fighting game and the simul-turn format lends itself to this perfectly. While Players build their teams of Pets as if constructing a well-tuned deck of Magic the Gathering cards, adversarial actions between you and your opponent are taken simultaneously, a simulacrum of the real-time experience of games like Street Fighter and Tekken.
The root of our issue with the traditional format is that Pixl Pet teams have a large number of options to choose from, up to 16 Moves per turn + additional actions and glitch commands. This leads to the blindness of simultaneous action feeling overly chaotic; there were so many possibilities that gaining any real advantage by skillfully assuming your opponent’s Action felt far beyond the reach of most players and situations.
We’ve been aware of this issue from an early stage of the combat’s blueprint but attempted to work through it via the clever design of Moves, Stats and other combat systems. However, we reached a point where the issue above led to complex and often bloated solutions to particular problems, and so, we’ve taken a new approach.
Players will still select their Moves simultaneously, but before combat resolves for that round information about what each Player chose will be revealed to their Opponent, and the Players will be given the option to make small adjustments (re-targeting Moves, switching Pets positioning, etc) before Combat starts.
The amount of information each Player reveals to their opponent depends on which Moves are selected in the ‘Action phase’ as well as certain Trainer and Arena-wide effects that may obscure or reveal additional information.
The ‘Reactions’ available to each Player will also depend on the Moves chosen in the Action phase (or previous Action phases) as well as a set of universally available reactions. The power and availability are carefully limited and making significant adjustments to cover for miscalculations in the Action Phase will cost Players significant amounts of energy and potentially incur other negative penalties. Players will have the freedom to choose options that feel more comfortable but at a steeper cost allowing their opponent to potentially turn the tide of battle.
We believe this system will make Players more responsive to one another and create more conscious critical decision-making moments.
Imagine knowing your opponent has launched a meteor at you, but not knowing which of your backline Pets that meteor is aimed at. You know which of your Pets he’d like it to hit! But he might know you know… Do you spend the energy to switch them around? Can you Guard the attack?
Despite the increase in complexity, we believe this change makes the new Player experience more forgiving in many ways! Newer Players who are yet to learn what all the Moves do will at least be able to make more decisions based on their Opponents revealed ‘Intent’ (shades of the popular PvE deck-building game Slay the Spire come to mind).
On top of this, a more complex and fit-for-purpose base system allows us to de-weight Moves and Glitch Commands, setting the foundation for creativity and player agency to exist during any point of the game rather than having to wait for specific turns. In truth, since we made this shift many of our other systems have just clicked into place.
These are quite large changes, and that’s not all of them but we’ll save the rest to surprise you with when testing kicks off.
On that note, we couldn’t be more excited for players to start testing out the new Pixl Pets combat experience and so, despite the major changes, we’ve decided NOT to delay the start of wider testing.
Community Testing — Expectations
Invitations to begin combat testing will begin being sent out at the end of this month.
This is a process that’s comprised of several rounds beginning with a small number of people known to the project for their specific expertise. This phase of testing is especially important given the rough stage of the newly designed combat system and the number of testers may not grow rapidly for some time.
As the focus of testing shifts away from addressing issues with the core systems and squashing newly arisen game-breaking bugs, we will begin to expand the circle of testers more quickly and rapidly including more and more of the community. Testing at this stage will be performed in timed intervals, e.g. testing opens to the community for 72 hours, after which we’ll take your feedback and make adjustments before the next scheduled test.
Beyond that, we want to open community testing and development in order to garner and fully utilize the feedback of the community, while providing updates to the game in real-time!
If you think you could bring value to Combat testing from an early stage, keep your eyes out on socials as we will be releasing an application form for you to fill out!
Ooft, that was a long one! Feel free to post your questions about the topics covered in this blog on Twitter and in the Discord. We hope everyone had great holidays and, even though it’s a little late, we’re happy to kick off the year with such big updates!
