Devlog 4

Hello again! It’s time for our fourth devlog on Know Your Wings, and this week marked a major step forward across all departments as we began building out our first fully playable level. Based on the feedback we received from previous presentations, we also made some critical adjustments to our core mechanics and level flow. Let’s dive into what we accomplished:

Game Design & Programming:

This week brought a number of major updates to our game’s design and feel, marking a big step forward for the project.

• Tone & Atmosphere Rework: We’ve made a conscious decision to shift the game’s atmosphere to better match its vampire-themed narrative. Ali redesigned the environment with a darker lighting setup and a red-toned background to create a more immersive, Dracula-inspired aesthetic. While the controls remain intentionally humorous and quirky, the updated tone provides a more cohesive backdrop for the world we’re building.
• Redesigned Flight System: The previous flight system suffered from a range of issues — sluggish movement, limited control over verticality, and overall lack of engagement. In response, Kaibo implemented a brand-new flight system from scratch. The new controls revolve around alternating wing flaps, which grant both forward and upward motion. Turning is now much smoother, resulting in a flight experience that feels both fluid and dynamic. With this new system in place, we’ve decided to remove the gliding mechanic (for now) to maintain a consistent and intuitive flying style.
• Procedural Animation (Code-Based): To better match the new control system, we’ve moved away from manually authored keyframe animations. Instead, Ricky began work on a code-driven animation system that allows for more responsive and expressive movement. Early results are promising and help enhance the feel of physically flapping wings during gameplay.
• Echolocation System Updates: In order to support our echolocation mechanic narratively and visually, we’re planning to add “dark areas” (e.g., caves) to the level — places where the bat cannot see unless echolocation is used. Sam has already expanded the echolocation radius, making it much more usable and effective. Meanwhile, Ali is actively experimenting with Unity’s Directional Light and shadow settings to prototype these dark zones. The rest of the feature will continue to be refined in the upcoming week, once lighting and level structure are finalized.
• Improved Collectible Interaction: Shaun added a gravity-like pull effect to the blood drops. Now, when the player gets close to a drop, it smoothly flies toward the bat instead of requiring a direct hit. This small touch adds polish and makes collecting feel more satisfying and responsive.
• Main Menu Prototype: As a quick quality-of-life improvement, Ali also implemented a basic main menu for the game. It’s still a placeholder visually, but it provides essential functionality — including Start, Options, and Quit — and will be improved over the coming weeks as we move toward Alpha.

Level Design:

This week, we made several key decisions to tighten the focus of our level and improve the player’s overall experience:

• Castle Walls & Magical Barrier: To give the level a stronger sense of structure and prevent it from feeling too open or directionless, we decided to enclose the entire map within castle walls. A magical barrier now surrounds the perimeter, creating a clearer boundary while still allowing for exploration.
• Removed the Hoops Challenge: One of the biggest changes was the complete removal of the hoops challenge. While it served as an early prototype for flying goals, we found that it clashed with our new vision. The hoops were more frustrating than fun, forcing sharp turns and awkward positioning that undermined the fluidity of flight. Since our goal is to celebrate the joy of flying, not restrict it, the hoops had to go.
• Dropped the Pickup Mechanic: We also decided to remove the pickup and drop mechanics from the level. Without a proper landing system in place, interacting with objects on the ground felt clunky and disconnected from the aerial gameplay. Cutting this feature allows us to focus entirely on flying and collecting, without introducing mechanics that don’t fit the core loop.
• Adjusted Blood Drop Count: With some challenges removed, we also reduced the total number of blood drops from 100 to 50. This helps streamline the experience and avoids unnecessary repetition. Players can now focus on finding key collectibles in a more meaningful way, rather than completing an extended checklist.
• Added Cave as a Dark Area: To support our echolocation mechanic, we began prototyping cave-like dark areas within the level.

Art:

This week, several new models were created by Caitlin and refined to support the visual development of our final level and important mechanics:

• Castle: A simplified modular castle structure with tall cylindrical towers and a central gate. This will serve as the core landmark in the final level.
• Throne: A blocky gothic-style throne model, intended as a key set piece in Dracula’s room. It’s still in progress and may be used with creative placement.
• Mosquito: A full low-poly mosquito-like creature is being modeled to replace the moving objects. Corner Towers: A separate set of models for castle corner towers was started to complement the main structure.

Music and Sound:

This week, Julian made major strides in polishing audio feedback, refining environmental sound design, and shaping the musical identity of the final level:

• Collision & Impact Sounds: A new set of bat squeak effects were created to play when the player collides with trees or walls. After a thorough license check, three variations were selected and will be randomized in-game to enhance feedback variety.
• Pause & UI Sound Effects: A complete set of pause, unpause, and transition sounds were added this week. Julian fine-tuned high frequencies and created short, snappy cues that suit the game’s tone. These have now been implemented in the current build.
• Final Level Ambience: Meanwhile, the team discussed musical direction for Dracula’s room, aiming for something more isolated and melancholic, but still slightly upbeat to reflect the final stage of the game. Julian is experimenting with violin layers and minimal piano arpeggios to achieve this tone.
• Dracula’s Room Theme: Julian composed a remixed version of Toccata tailored to the final level, now slower in BPM, less intense in percussion, and accompanied by a subtle, haunting violin part. One version includes a creepy audio cue at the end, which might be used selectively for dramatic effect.

Next Steps:

Our next focus will be conducting external playtests to gather feedback from new players and identify any friction points in the current build. This will help us validate the recent changes and guide future improvements.

On the development side, we plan to continue refining the echolocation mechanic, especially in relation to lighting and dark area interactions. We’ll also begin addressing bugs and edge cases discovered during recent testing to improve overall polish and stability as we move closer to the Alpha milestone.