A New Dimension of Movement
Cybordz has always let you spin while busting out wicked combos, just like in the Tony Hawk series. Now you can do front and backflips while holding any (non-turbo) grab.
Under the hood, this is called Aerial mode, and it's the biggest addition this month. Grab your board in the air, double-tap and hold Up or Down to perform front and backflips. Use the left and right bumpers to spin at the same time, performing wild SSX-style maneuvers. It works on vert, too. Launch up a quarter pipe, grab, and flip your heart out.
The controls are still a work in progress, so your feedback is welcome.
Game design discussion
Aerial mode is deliberately gated behind holding a grab. This makes it easier to prevent accidentally flipping when you don't want to. It's also hopefully somewhat intuitive, since you don't want to lose your board while flipping out in the vacuum of space. I know I hate it when that happens.
It also minimizes how many animations I have to tune, since each animation needs its own pivot point around which to perform the flipping. Limiting it to grabs helps reduce the amount of tedious tuning I need to do.
Over the Spine
Spine transfers grew up a lot this month.
You can now transfer at an angle instead of straight across, and the game searches for a verts along your path of travel (approximating changes in gravity along the way) rather than assuming the one directly opposite of you. The practical result is that you can be more creative with how you transfer between verts.
And, yes, you can do front and backflips while doing a spine transfer!
A New Type of Challenge
So far there have been 2 types of challenges in Cybordz. Score points to get more time and collect the sprockets. Now, a new type of challenge involves directly interacting with the environment. The first of its kind is the "Knock Down the Satellite Dishes" challenge on the second level. These challenges will give players another way to get time. Helping relieve some of the pressure players often feel when they make it to the second level.
Aerial mode opens up a lot, and I want to see what people do with it. Flip over a spine, land it, and tell me about it.
Schedule a live playtest and help shape where this goes next.
Until next time!
Robert