I think the art style of the game is stylistic enough that the blood doesn't look all that "gory". It also seems thematically appropriate for a game called "Bloodthief". I don't think a gore slider is a bad idea for those who want to turn the amount of blood spawned down, but it doesn't look all that gory as is right now and feels like it ties the game title and aesthetics together.

I like to imagine coyote time is just the player using their foot to push the side of the ledge behind them to jump

For someone who says they don't know what they're doing, the solutions you're coming up with are awesome. The "player grace" of not resetting the enemy lock when enemies are grouped together is something no player will ever think about, but will make a world of difference to game feel. Great stuff.

you explain the problems so well that they seem obvious, but totally understandable how much work goes into getting there Maybe put off doing the first levels of the game until the rest of the game is made. as they say "the first level is the one you make last" since its when you know everything you'll need to teach the player

Add a drop kick

The industry term for "player grace" is "hysteresis". It's a big thing in things like device drivers, where you have noisy input signals and don't want to accidentally e.g. start emptying the coolant tanks because a cosmic ray flipped a bit - you sample it for a while and only take action after the condition has been going on for a certain amount of time so you can be sure it's for real. (And conditions for entering and leaving a state have a range gap between them so you won't flip-flop between them if the signal is right in the middle)

You should always make sure that the world reacts when you interact. mist or any response to a action. is always going to prevent a narrasistic injury and therefore make things fun. (this is what valve used as their thought process that the built half-life's mechanics around)

for the dash, have you ever thought about increasing the fov when the dash starts? like in nfs games, when you use NOS, the games fov increases and it makes the game feel more 'intense'

One suggestion I just thought of if you ever want to introduce new mechanics is the historic concept of blood humors. Theres black bile, yellow bile, white bile ( phlegm) and red bile (blood). You could maybe make them as different reward tiers/medals, or actual game mechanics like teleport for white bile or harder ground pound for black bile. And if we wanna go that deep, could have each humor have its own meter that the player has to balance strategically. IF you wanna go that deep further into the game

Add the ability to flip your sword like a csgo knife inspect, it seems useless but i swear useless cool shit like that adds to the player experience so much

Your comments about dealing with a forgiving aim system while still respecting player intent also apply perfectly to in-world UIs and buttons. You don't want your players to have to aim pixel-perfect at a button, but still want them to be able to click a button that's further away even if there's another button closer to the player. It's this kind of problem and solution that separates good games from rubbish ones where it feels like the dev never played their own game. Bravo!

I think the grace period is very important for pretty much every genre of a game. Even tho, many games don't even implement it. It's also really easy to implement since it's just a timer that can either buffer an action, or allow an action to be executed within that time limit. Bunny hopping is the best example.

I also really like the idea of introducing more "boring" levels in the beginning, it allows players to have fun with newly learned mechanics for a bit before needing to really be challenged.

These are some of the best devlogs on youtube right now, you've found a great balance of being fun and engaging while still going deep on game design principles.

9:47 It's still coyote time, right? it's not for jumping but the concept is the same, epic vid btw!

9:47 The closest thing to an industry term I've heard is probably Coyote Time. Its used more for the grace period between a player falling off a ledge and them no longer being registered as standing on ground, the grace period allows players to jump so they can get back up on the ledge. EDIT: Didn't realise you mentioned Coyote Time like a minute later. But yeah I think this is probably the closest thing we have to a proper term.

13:40 the "simple things are novel and fun for new players" is probably the thing everyone is the blindest to, be it someone making a game, a tabletop RPG, or even showing someone else a game. It's impressive how quickly you desensitize yourself to basic mechanics that are actually a blast to play for the first time.

i am so exited, i just realized that this is a playtest game on steam and i can join!!!

I love watching your development videos and getting to play the results! Keep it up, I can't wait to buy the full version of this eventually!

This is some great work. I played the playtest and you've made some really great improvements, keep it up!

7:49 I think there is also one thing that I want to point out: You dash straight into the enemy, but the enemy can walk somewhere else while youre dashing. If you dash to a place where enemy was, and not where they are, then it will make it more impactful (since you'll dash through an enemy a little, obliterating them, I think it'll feel better) and also its more predictable, although this part might need more tweaking

Loved watching this! Its great to watch the development process and you tackled the issues you faced. Also, love seeing the core mechanic! High speed dash/grappling hook games seem to be like 20% of every indie game I ever see being made, but your approach actually makes that core mechanic look fun! It doesn’t feel like a movement mechanic that is added ontl a game, it really feels like its the core identity.

Damn, it feels like you post every week, time goes by so fast and every video you make is something I always enjoy to watch, but also forget its going to come.

Fantastic video, look forward to seeing what happens next!

Dude your game looks awesome and I think you have crafted a really fun experience. I know how much effort goes into these changes since Im making a solo game too. Keep up the good work

Game design is some really fascinating stuff. This was really cool to learn and watch from you! I want to wishlist and play test it right now

Downloading the playtest now! Thanks for offering one - I've seen your other videos on this, and can't wait to play it! woohoo!

This is such an underrated channel. Not only are these videos incredibly interesting (and entertaining!), the game also just looks really fun

Really nice video. Looking forward to see how your game evolve.

This is really, really good! You explained the premise clearly, and your problem-solving approach is great. +1 sub from me! Looking forward to see the future of this game.

I love the game, like ideologically it looks like a vampire themed Ghostrunner and it is very cool

I love this series so much and you bring up so many good points that I've been working on implementing into projects of my own. Amazing work so far, definitely excited to test it out plus movement reminds me of titanfall 2 so big bonus points there

flow, juice, grace, - this devlog is gold - and I am excited to see what you are testing for the high part of that curve! nice! 😊💚

Tomorrow ill add it to my wishlist and try out the demo! Looks amazing been following these videos and the games always improving keel up the good work.

Love this video, perfectly describes the struggles that come with designing mechanics and how to grow from it! Liked and Subbed :)

your game reminds me sooo much of the one jdh is working on, and they both have the most beautiful visual style! ive always wanted games to have more shhmovement and damn does yours look like it delivers :D this is one of the few devlogs i actually look forward to seeing progress, so thanks for keeping me un-bored

I like your videos and the game looks cohesive and pure! I'm getting too much indie dev stuff in my feed that's barely about actually developing games at all and over youtube-ized and clickbaity. I enjoy watching this more, it's not like super advanced or anything, but it's nice to see the process and how you go about developing your game. With a good amount of attention for design and playtesting etc.

I think a snarky 'narrator' that guides you through the first few minutes, or the baseline mechanics, may be something worth pursuing. Having more 'fun' HUD glyphs which pop out in key areas instead of the static text box may also help new players to not ignore important information. Add those two together. You spawn into the first area (that grey stone blood pit with the enemy the game teaches you to dash to). Narrator says something like 'Don't forget, Blood Thief, you like blood. Oh look, there's a lot of blood!' with a hovering HUD glyph that is pointing you towards the blood pool. Player thinks, 'oh I need to stand in the blood', so they do, and their (blood) meter begins filling. The player now knows they need to fill a meter (with blood) and standing (in blood) helps with that. After the meter is filled, the narrator could say 'Ah, how filling. Now, use your blood and dash up to that fool to satiate yourself some more.' With another glyph hovering around the enemy with not text, but a simple icon for the space bar (or whatever the jump button is mapped to), and right click (the dash button). This should signal 'jump, then click'. The player's own intelligence should be enough to understand 'oh, fill the meter, jump, and you can dash to enemies!' Since dashing uses up blood, and it doesn't take the entire bar to dash, the narrator can speak about dashing as soon as you have enough in your meter. Once you dash to the enemy and are coated in their blood, make the bar refilling from the enemy's death more apparent ('Heh, he was good too.' says the narrator) and it all coalesces into the player understanding the blood meter, and dashing. It adds a bit of spice to how information is divulged and feels more interactive than simply reading a text box.

Really good video and good explanation of your fixes. Glad to see people evangelizing good design! ❤

Have you considered making the blood spray from the dash spray in accordance with the player's movement vector. If the play is going really fast they will only barely see the blood and it also would add to the 'juice' of the interaction. Also if you want to add more depth to the dash without making it harder what you could do it use 2 vectors to add to the player's velocity. One would move the player towards the enemy and the other vector would be the players forward vector. This would mean that if you look close enough to the enemy it would be the same but if you were to look in another direction you could swing towards them in away that could allow for some advanced movement tech with the dash.

I'm loving how clean the movement looks man

The new targeting for air-dash is so much better, amazing job on the improvements!

Great video! Love dev work. My own game is in this same stage. I feel it.

here's a few hints for making your hits feel better/satisfying: - screen glow - screen shake (note: don't make the screen too shaky, as it can get annoying!) - screen field of view change (example: change the FOV from 90 to 100, then transition it back to 90 right after you set it) - hitmarker sound and effect (or anything that can despict impact, such as a blood splatter or knife wound on the target) also, i really recommend you making the hit sounds juicier, it doesn't sound that satisfying honestly. good luck!

Great dev blog as usual, and fantastic progress!

Very insightful video! Loved seeing the process of how you improved the air dash. I watched the video and actually tested the game myself, and I have a tip. Air dash does feel really good, that's no doubt, but I think the parry needs some touch up. Honestly, you could do what ultrakill does and stop time for a little bit when parrying to really give impact; you could also make the arrow explode, but idk if that would make sense with the game that you're going for. Instead what you could do is make the arrow travel 2 times faster (idk if you do already tbh), make the arrow penetrate enemies, and when an enemy gets killed with a parry, they drop more blood. You could use similar effects as the air dash kill.

one of the best dev logs i know, keep going!

I love your attention to detail. I can relate to this vid, I'm early on in my project, and the first piece of feedback my friends gave me were the hit response VFX. Even though it wasn't something I've implemented yet, it was the first empty piece they felt when seeing the graphics for the first time. Can't wait to see more of bloodthief 🦀

That crosshair totally transformed it. Love the breakdown and how you show your thought process and learning!

I've put a few hours into the playtest already and the stuff I'm seeing in this video actually makes me super hyped for the final game!

Great job! Very good video and I'm looking forward to playing the game :)

I cannot wait to play the whole game. I played the test on stream and me and my viewers liked it a lot

This looks hella satisfying, great info and would PLAY!

I've been learning game dev recently, and even though we use completely different engines and my game and your game are completely different, I still find your videos very insightful about the process of making a fun game and understanding the fundamentals of making one. Hope your game sees big success!

No way... I literally commented about this earlier today on a video you did a few months back 😂 Great work man.

A lot of really smart ideas in this video. Wishlisted on steam.

Super interesting things! I can't wait to try this out!

played bloodthief its pretty cool I like the movment :)

I played your game yesterday, and I loved the gore and speed of the game. It was cool.

ngl I firmly believe this game will be the next “commentary youtuber background gameplay” game

Love how the game is coming so far! Also LOVE the insightful commentary on the process and philosophy of building a fun game. If you are still taking suggestion however for the dash-kill effect/payoff, it would be nice and would help keep the "speed and momentum" flow of the dash kill if 1 or 2 body parts can be seen flying across the direction. I really like how Warframe (a space-ninja game) does their bow kill which basically pins the enemy into a wall if the hit was strong enough. So since the dash kill is full of momentum and energy, it would be cool to see that being carried into something when collided/release. The body parts could be just a single limb, a helmet, or even a sword. Heck, this could be built upon more where these "projectiles" could hurt other enemies if hit by it. Just some food for thought :> Love the progress and keep at it! Can't wait for the next devlog!

I really like the changes to the air dash indicator and the grace period system, I had lots of 'jank' experiences on level 1 and almost all of them were related to the air dash.

15:43 Here's an interesting idea for you, later in the game there will be a unique challenge where enemies that distract your air charge targeting system pop up, the obvious one would just a really annoying dude that your targeting system is more likely to go after then the person you were actually targeting, then later on there will come enemies who will have points somewhere around them that can get targeted instead.

i look forward to the tutorial revamps and seeing what you'll do with level 2 in the future may have gone hella off the rails in the google form about level 2 because in that line you mentioned earlier i'm at the bottom, so i was pretty frustrated about it even if it had some novel ideas and looking at you play it with skill is like watching witchcraft the least i can say in regards to this is to make sure the player feels like they can _approach_ a level instead of spending an ungodly amount of time doing a few tricks that are way harder than what they've encountered before, like those jokes about what you study in class and what you see in the exams, and you can give people more reasons to come back to older levels in some way or another

As someone who is trying to learn godot myself, with extremely similar mechanics and aesthetic, I wanted to tell you you are extremely generous with the information you give out and I appreciate it EXTREMELY. You even put out the gdscript. I will be following you closely.

This is so useful! Thank you!

First of all, this looks sick and I'm immediately subscribing. For your depth question, consider "trick shots" like maybe being able to pass an enemy during a dash then hitting dash again to zip back to them as a second target, or bonuses for upward or downward dashes?

In terms of matching skill to difficulty, rollerdome allows you to replay past levels to finish challanges to unlock future levels. the first time you finish it its sooo hard, but once you come back to it you are a god and its fun to get all the perks you couldnt the first time

What an amasing and informative video! Great insight

Great video, full of ressources for new game devs!

I think this is very cool, I have no interest in learning game design but you make it seem to interesting. It’s reminiscent of the love developers had for their products years back that just isn’t always there theses days

Very good devlog. Different weapons the player can choose from at the start of the level/menu could be fun mechanically. You could have a mace that increases the slam radius and makes the slam fall faster. A pokey knife/rapier that makes sliding faster with quicker attacks. An axe that can allow the player to hit multiple enemies but attacks slower. Or even a spear that makes the player able to lunge-target enemies at a greater distance but costs more blood. This would add to the replayability and could add to the speedrunning community by adding multiple leaderboards for different weapons. It could also make certain secrets only obtainable with certain weapons being used.

I've played a good amount of the playtest and always had trouble with the air dash, but I could never put my finger on why. These are some great changes!

This is the first vid I've watched of your progress, and not only does it looks super fun so far, but seeing your solutions to issues of player feedback is really interesting. I think there is an issue with your solution to the player trying to dash without enough blood, in that the shield icon implies it's the enemy that's restricting the dash, not the player lacking the resource, as well as being a different style of visual cue compared to the regular dash. If you want to keep the indication of which enemy is the dash target, I think the indicator should be a non-moving circle around the enemy instead of the four triangles, keeping the visual language of an indicator encircling the target, but lacking the sharp edges and movement of the triangles to distinguish it from the "active" nature of the dash

i love this style of game, and would love some sort of multiplayer gamemode. nice man!

I'VE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE AIM VECTOR PROBLEM FOR SO LONG, THANK YOU

thx for share, very useful and interesting points

Keep the good work! The new "tutorial", with slow motion and everything feels *really* nice. I don't even know if you are going to read this, but here is a suggestion for... Well, everything: redundancy. Examples: - Making the player practice the thing you already told them about in the tutorial a little longer (as you are already thinking about). - The new dash target crosshair shows really well the dash target, but you can also add some sort of blood chain linking the player to the target while dashing. Maybe the player's offhand pulling himself towards the enemy using a blood rope (just like spiderman with webs)? - There already is a blood meter bar in the HUD, but you still can add some sort of trim in the sword which gets filled with blood, mirroring the state of the blood bar, or some other element, like making the screen edges bloody. - There already are effects making the dash feel nice, but some occasional short slow motion in the moment the dash starts, giving the player a little more time to process where are they going would make it even more satisfying. - The medals at the end already give the player a reward for being fast, but what about some sort of combo counter to give an immediate feedback about their frenzy?

It's funny, I put this video on in the background while playing another game. I was playing as Athena in Borderlands TPS. Her melee build feels very similar to the dash here. It's a fun mechanic, and it sounds like you've found a good way to implement it.

the real showstopper to the gore effects from a dash would be for the chunks and blood to fly in the direction of your dash, all that momentum in you just transferred straight to what remains of that guy you just turned into chunky salsa

This is fantastically helpful and interesting 👏👏👍👍

10:00 the "player grace" idea might be what they call "affordances" in the industry. i saw a gdc talk about uncharted or something where they talk about how they only have ledges at specific heights so you can easily see if you can hide, climb, unscalable, etc. and in half life, etc. there are "corner smoothing colliders" to make you not hit corners as much. "coyote time" is another one - just giving a little leeway to the player so they can make minor errors and still feel awesome, so that "close enough" is good enough.

The medals should be items that you can use for something later. You complete the tutorial, you get a dung pie. Love this game.

If you want to make the blood effects look less gory, just change the colors from red to random. It will look like confetti and streamers.

The dim dash cursor might be a bit difficult to see for some people. You might want to consider visual options like opacity and colorblind settings in the future. A really good distance icon I've seen is from Sekiro, where your grapple points will show up as an empty white ring to show that you're close but unable to grapple. As you get closer the ring is filled with an expanding white circle to show you're approaching grapple distance. It then becomes green as the circle fills the ring completely, indicating that you can grapple to that point.

Bro I be waiting for your vids to drop cus you a goat

Definitely think the blood should be toned down a tiny tiny bit, but that depends on the max encounter size you can have in a room. If you can cover the whole room in blood with only 1/4th of the enemies in a room then that'll just stick out as being weird. An entire floor should only be painted red after the room is clear.

oeh this is the 2nd video I've seen of you and it just send me from "ah random indie devlog nbr 72" to interested on a deeper level and even a little inspired! Maybe it's time to put my CS student skills to use and try to fuck around in game engines a bit >:) Either way keep it up! Curious to see what's next :)

a positively succulent game with all the fixins! splendid!

If the aesthetic of the level design turns out like a mix of Blood and Quake, that would be very satisfying

Very good video overall, great job

Physics is something that people tend to expect to work the same, but in fantasy you can however you want, but similarity does bring it home, I'm talking about the gibs explosion, it should explode but also calculate where the player come and then it direct where the gibs fly to

I feel like the gore would be made even better if there was a gib that looked like the enemy's helmet

Just commenting for the algorithm, love you work brother.

My immediate thought on the "easy but deep" concept: Maybe when you slide into an enemy, instead of gibbing they get launched like a projectile. This can send them flying into other enemies, or even better you can launch them /then/ do an air dash on the same guy to reach some insane distances. I think that would actually open up the game for really skilled players to skip over some sections during speedruns!

This game looks sick as hell I'm definitely wishlisting it and playtesting

Easing new players into the game is so important. One of my favorite examples of this is Super Mario 64. The game starts with Mario in a meadow outside of Peach's castle. You can learn all of the movement mechanics (running, jumping, and swimming) without the threat of anything harming you.

Your air dash kinda reminds me of the chainsaw slide from turbo overkill. The dev was able to make the mechanic interesting threw the use of s and augments. It became stronger the faster you were moving allowing you to combo it with the dash cooldown. Augments gave you more s, health or armor regen, quicker boost, and more. All of that made the mechanic way more interesting and while the levels were a little too long for that style game, it never became monotonous. It still stands out and gave the game a unique feel

I love these videos because of the game designing and development process with creative thinking on how to solve shits rather than just following mindless dev logs. Kudos to this video wishlist hope I can play this masterpiece one day.

it would help a lot for the juice, i feel, if you continue accelerating a little bit after launching, its not a grappling hook! great devlog, keep it up!!