Starpelly

Alright so some info on Motionmelody.

First off, the concept of the game is officially one year old, not the game itself. But the idea for it, so that counts in some cosmic way, right?

Anyway, a lot has happened since the last time I showed anything regarding Motionmelody/Gridbeats. So I’m gonna make a quick highlight showcase.

Selection system in level editor

Menu mockups and ideas, although I don’t think I’m gonna keep them.

Old screenshot but this shows what the gameplay could look like

That’s all I have for this post see you next month or whenever I decide to update this!

Appropriately after Rhythm Heaven Mania I decided to dip my toes into some mobile games. Now I’ve never made a mobile game before, so I have no idea what to expect. I’m sure there’s a lot of fun to be had though.

The games I decided to port was the “Endless Games” from Rhythm Heaven DS. I always found these fun enough and small enough to port to a mobile phone, especially if they’re use something easy to grasp like the “flicking” mechanic.

My mom already playtested it, and with no prior knowledge to Rhythm Heaven she pretty much mastered it in a matter of minutes. That COULD be because it might be too easy, but I don’t know I would have to look into it.

Gridbeats is dead, and Rhythm Heaven Mania has been given to someone else. So now what? Well, obviously I’m going back to the simple life of visual effects and making video games. It was truly a fun time, but I have other things I need to do. Hopefully the Rhythm Heaven community can have fun with that while willfully curb stomping an autistic man for using the wrong word in a button on his niche blog website.

Anyway, what do I have planned for the future? Well, namely a game engine. Appropriately called “Starflow”. It’s primary purpose is stylish 3D and rhythm games. Originally created for Rhythm Heaven Mania it will now serve as the main game engine for Boxsubmus… when It’s done anyway.

Of course, this is all super early on, I’ve only been working on it for a week. Who knows what it will be like in the future.

Regarding my YouTube channel

More likely than not, I’m probably just gonna go back to YTPMV’s. I had the most fun out of all the stuff I do currently, making them than ANYTHING I do now.

I remember when I tried using my channel as a resource for the Rhythm Heaven soundtrack. I realized I could just make it all one video instead, and then I realized someone else was doing the same thing anyway. So I bailed on that plan. The community post is still up though for some reason, I might delete that some time never.

Anyway yeah, I’m going back to do the things I love. And I won’t let anyone stop me. I’ll see you in the next 4 months.

I wanted to show a little something I’ve been working on. I have really big plans for it. It was actually the first time I successfully made a level editor too. This game is more of a mix between Soundodger and Just Shapes & Beats.

Editor Preview

Main Menu

There’s obviously more than that but you get the idea.

All screenshots are subject to change, of course.

I was thinking of making a discord server where people can create and share their own levels without the risk of me being sued for copyright infringement.

By the way this blog is over 1 year old now, happy birthday.

If you didn’t know, After Effects has these things called “Layer Styles”. These are similar, but are NOT the same as effects. As layer styles are applied after everything else.

I will go more in-depth about layer styles in a future tutorial, but this should give you the basics of all you really need to know right now.

Clicking on stroke you can see that it will apply a very simple “outline” effect. If you’ve ever used a program like Photoshop this might seem familiar.

However you seem to notice something when motion blur is applied.

The motion blur does not effect the stroke style we added. :(
Luckily for us effects are here to not make us bang our head against the table.

Copy my settings here:

All this basically does is “mask” the transparent part of our clip with blue, Keylight will key out the blue, and the “Screen Matte” will expand the key-ed out background and replace it with the “Replace Colour”. You can mess with the settings if you want. I would also recommend creating a user-made-preset since you might be using this a lot.

Seeing as the effect is now applied BEFORE the motion blur, it will now be effected by it.