Devlog 1

Hello! We are team Creature of the Night, the developers of Know Your Wings. This is our first devlog, where we explain how we made a quick demo / prototype for our game in a few hours (in a game jam). Before we dive in, a quick re-introduction. Know Your Wings is a QWOP-style simulation game where you fly around as a bat by individually flapping your wings, each controlled by their own button. Here is the progress we have made so far categorized by discipline:

Level Design: For the level used in our game jam, we threw it together pretty quickly as an open playground to mess around with the movement in, with various blocks and towers scattered about for the player to try flying over and around. We also created a short hoop gauntlet as a challenge for people to test their skills (and the flight system) on as well.

The level was very useful in helping us realize issues and limitations with the flight system that we’ll need to fix or keep in mind for the future, such as difficulty with sharp turns or how much button-mashing players currently need to do if they want to significantly ascend.

Visuals and Assets: For our playground, we created a player character designed after a bat, and a few obstacles that players could traverse around or play with. Some include airborne hoops and floor based hoops, and some blocks that serve to make the player turn or change paths. As of now the bat doesn’t have animations, but we hope to include them in the future. The third version of the bat model has been rigged, however has not been implemented into the build yet.

Music and Sound: For the music and sound, our team’s Sound Designer, Julian, composed a breakbeat remix of J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Since you play as a bat and we had the idea for Transylvania, Julian felt like it would have been appropriate and memorable for players of the game. Julian also found a wing flapping / whooshing noise that was to be played every time the player moved the bat.

Game Programming and Unity: We built a basic player controller script. The script handles movement via keyboard or gamepad input and applies force using a Rigidbody. The left input applies a force upwards and to the left, and the right input does the same but in the right direction. We also set up a simple third-person camera that follows the bat and gets rotated when the movement inputs are held. Additionally, we added another input for resetting the player’s position and orientation with the controller’s start button. This early version helped us prototype the flying feel and identify areas for improvement, like turning control, smoother acceleration, and more realistic camera follow behavior.

Project Management: As the Project Manager, one of our team members, Ali, was responsible for connecting all the disciplines and making sure we would get a working demo by our deadline, which was a few hours away.

Our Weekly Meetings & Next Steps: Since May 14, 2025, the team has held 4 meetings. During these, we constructed a lot of important documents such as the Team Charter, Miro board, Creative Brief, and presentation. In regards to our discoveries from our first demo, we found the turning radius of the bat to be lacking, found by a set of hoops that aren’t possible to complete as the turning speed wouldn’t allow completion. The ferocity you have to click the buttons to gain air is also an issue of note, which will have to be tweaked as we develop further. Our next steps are planning a specific development schedule and setting up our Trello board. These will help us stay on track as we are finalizing the game’s main design decisions.

This is all the progress we’ve made so far. We’ll post a new devlog every week as the development advances. Thanks for reading!