Toaster Launcher Dev Diary - January 2024 - Demo Incoming

  I apologize for the delay in entries. I have spent time trying to replan the artistic direction of this game and spending the holidays with my family. Now that they are out of the way, I am now back on track. Anyway, I need to explain. Toaster Launcher's development has been going slowly. Considering that it is my first game on my own and on Godot, it would have been understandable. Fortunately, I have gotten most of the basic mechanics done with gameplay, favor system, a prompt for a game over, and setting up basic UI, all that would be left is to connect them together and to slap some aesthetics and audio on it. However, as I get there, that is when the delay happened.

    First thing's first, I have not started to really plan on the story yet. In the original Toaster Launcher, all that is shown is that there is a toaster shooting toast to destroy explosives raining from the sky. With this remake, I plan to do better by adding a campaign with story, and now trying to think of it, it brings up some questions like: Where did the toaster come from, why can it move and fire toast, why did it exist, why are explosives raining from the sky and so on. This is not just a narrative concern, but a design concern instead. Earlier, I have stated that the levels would be: Ground, Sky, Space, and Space Station. That also brings up the question: How can the toaster fly once ground is finished? 

    So that is when the replan happened. Some sprites have been redesigned, mainly the power-ups to be more like food-based items instead of circular bubbles. There are also new enemies that are based on certain levels. Speaking of levels, they have also been changed. They are now: Laboratory, City, Sky then Space. All of these would fit well into the story that I am planning to create. With the first level being a lab, this explains that the toaster is some invention made by a scientist, explaining where it comes from and why it can do these stuff? Perhaps it was made in response to the raining explosives or a rather mundane reason.

    Here are all of the current sprites with the redesigned power ups and the new enemies:

There are sprites for a landmine, grenade, missiles and floating mines. As for the power-ups, the sprites for Quick Toast and Burning Toast have been reskinned and renamed into Butter and Chili, respectively. There are also new power-ups as well as negative ones called "hinderances."

    The new power-ups are:

1. Coffee - Makes the toaster move twice as fast.
2. Fridge - Freezes all explosives in place and prevents new ones from spawning.
3. Bomb - A hinderance. Destroys the toaster.
4. Caramel - A hinderance. Covers the toaster in caramel, slowing it down.
5. Fork - A hinderance. Jams the toaster, preventing it to fire.
6. Extra Life - Self-explanatory. Gives an extra life.

    As of now, most of the power-ups have been implemented. I have yet to start introducing the new explosives.

    There are also tweaks to gameplay, such as changing speed values, greatly increasing the spawn rate of explosives to better the pacing and a change to the toaster's movement, particularly through the mouse. It is now a sliding follow movement towards the cursor instead of fixing its position to it. This is done for it to be affected by the new power-ups as well as to have a mouse counterpart of the keyboard's boost key. It also produces a better-looking movement.

    So those are all the changes presented, now let me get to the main topic.

    I have planned to release a demo on itch.io once the game is completely finished, but because of the replan. I suspect that I would have made so many mistakes after fully developing systems and finishing so many aesthetics that I would have to make some big changes that would have been avoided. Therefore, for now, I would focus on implementing the remaining enemies and power-ups, completing the UI and the essential aesthetics, and make the endless mode of City and Sky. This would allow testers to point out any suggestions and bugs of the main gameplay before I decide to go further, minimalizing any future mistakes. I have planned to accomplish this at the start of March and to release the demo a few days later once it is ready to go.

    To finish this devlog, here is the state of the gameplay right now, with the following stated above as well as a better background color, meant to represent the Sky Endless Level.

Make sure you stay tuned for updates on the game's development! 🍞💣

- Arolf Delano Santos