Carkour! v5.0.23

Version 5.0.23 is a pretty major update for Carkour! We only have a few items to cover here, but one of them is very large.

Updates in 5.0.23:

• All new Terrain system
• New House World Levels
• New background & parallax system
• Updated Music & SFX

All New Terrain System

While we were focused on building out our 2nd world and planning our 3rd, we came across something that we just couldn't let go. We needed a better way to make more dynamic terrain that wasn't just based on sprites. As levels get more complex, we found that having the level built from different objects was time consuming for us to make work, as well as fairly distracting to the player when trying to decipher what is important and what is not.

After exploring the newfound technique a little more, we felt it provided what we feel is the true aesthetic of the game.  We could just make ALL of our terrain out of this new dynamic collider system.  It would allow:

• our collision trails to render a lot more cleanly
• using environment sprites as accent pieces and obstacles
• more rapidly developing complex puzzles

While this was very exciting to uncover, it meant a lot of work going back and applying this new look to the existing levels. If we were going to apply this technique, we needed to be consistent. So, unfortunately this ate up a lot of our time over the last few weeks. The good news is, we feel very good about the end results and are excited to move forward now that this has been built out. Take a look at a preview clip of one of the early levels converted over.

New House World Levels

We have two new levels, and some tweaks to existing levels in the House world. I don't want to spoil too much here, but we have some exciting new environment interactions planned, and these levels are just the start. You'll be plowing through some books,  strategically guiding a run-away ball, and making use of a catapult to make it through these new challenges!

New Background and Parallax System

This one is really straight forward. Gray was boring. We were tired of it, and it made the game feel pretty drab. So we've worked out a way to provide some nice simple backgrounds that are still non-distracting, but give the game a more comfy feeling. Along with this, we revamped how our backgrounds parallax, which should give us a lot more control over how things are shown in relation to the camera, and perform a lot better on lower-end devices. As a preview of one of the new levels and the BG system, take a look at the intro for "Let's Drop the Ball":

Updated Music and SFX

As always Nathan has been hard at work revamping our soundtrack, and diving into SFX work. You'll notice in this build some smoother background music transitions, updated tracks, and a few new SFX throughout. We're consistently impressed with the way the sounds in the game are evolving, and can't wait for you all to hear the new stuff!