Carpoon [Early Access]

Devlog

• New Carpoon Demo!
  November 21, 2024 by Tom Arnold#Demo, #Carpoon, #GameMaker Studio

  Carpoon has evolved a lot since its original demo! Try out the new demo with: Parkin’ Panic graphics refresh & geyser jumps Steam Deck & 1440p support Player position & colours save after each round... Continue reading

  
• Keeping an eye on what’s important to players or "Hats"
  October 07, 2024 by Tom Arnold

  1

  #multiplayer, #Carpoon, #GameMaker

  In this post, you can see the shifts in development from what I thought I should be focusing on to making Carpoon better for players. Autoworks Waves I implemented the change I mentioned in my last po... Continue reading

  
• Adding Clear Objectives - Another Milestone Down
  January 21, 2024 by Tom Arnold#Carpoon, #milestone, #objectives, #game demoing

  I reached the second last milestone for Carpoon to add in objectives, and how it's important not to be giving too many tips during a game demo to make your game better. There also is a setting to skip... Continue reading

  
• Fixing Carpoon's Shaky Camera
  November 05, 2023 by Tom Arnold

  I finished another major milestone recently by rebuilding Carpoon’s camera! It was a feature requested by several players to remove some constant shakes it had. These shakes happened while trying to... Continue reading
• The Road to Carpoon's First Tournament Ever
  August 05, 2023 by Tom Arnold#LTX2023, #Tournament, #Carpoon

  Back around March, I was given a great opportunity to have Carpoon as a mystery game tournament at LTX 2023. However, compared to demoing, the realization set in that this was a different type of pres... Continue reading
• Autoworks Co-op Progress & Not Making Everything from Scratch - Carpoon Devlog Update
  October 13, 2022 by Tom Arnold

  Here's a huge chunk of progress on Carpoon's Autoworks level, and going over the solution to make curved conveyor belts that didn't have to be made from scratch. Plus using GMLive helped speed things... Continue reading
• Devlog Update: Things I should have avoided + Autoworks!
  February 13, 2022 by Tom Arnold

  1

  #Devlog, #Hotdog, #Autoworks

  Probably adding the hotdog cart to more levels shouldn’t have been at the top of my list of features to add. In this video, I go over some things I should have avoided, and also an Autoworks update!... Continue reading
• The Big Surfing Update!
  November 30, 2021 by Tom Arnold#Surfing, #Waves mode, #Carpoon

  I finished adding waves mode to Carpoon's Volcarnage Island! Completely my silly idea of cars on surfboards wasn't as easy as I thought thanks to adding paths for them to follow. At this point, there... Continue reading
• July Devlog Update after Steam Next Fest
  July 23, 2021 by Tom Arnold

  Breakable crates, volume control, balancing waves mode and more in this latest update. Forgot to mention that spinning the right stick or shaking the mouse will also reduce stun from being harpooned f... Continue reading
• Carpoon Development Update - Laser, New Level Progress, Discord & More
  May 19, 2021 by Tom Arnold

  A quick video with timestamps going over some of the recent changes to Carpoon from UI to the next level! Join the Carpoon Discord: https://discord.gg/KeG7krQ https://tombo.itch.io/carpoon... Continue reading
• Laser Tracking
  February 07, 2021 by Tom Arnold

  I wanted to update how the laser tracks the player on Volcarnage Island because before, it used a lerp and didn't really encourage the player to changing directions, just to outrun it. Eventually I ca... Continue reading
• Level 3 Autoworks + Stock Taker
  January 02, 2021 by Tom Arnold

  1

  Happy New Year! Just a couple small updates: Recently I finished some art to go with the fantastic new music track by Mathew Kirkegaard for the third stage The Autoworks: Currently, I'm working on fi... Continue reading

  
• Carpoon Update! New Music, Pause, & More!
  June 22, 2020 by Tom Arnold

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  In the latest build of Carpoon, there's now: New Music by @peachtoadstoolp to replace my short five second loop Pause Menu including level objectives Hot dog cart that can be used as a shield And man... Continue reading
• Analog Stick Reeling Fixed & Playable Update
  May 12, 2020 by Tom Arnold

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  In this latest devlog and playable update: Reeling with the analog stick is now fixed! Something I thought impossible happened: Ropes now have a pattern Claw pick-up greatly improved in Volcarnage Isl... Continue reading
• Retooling Volcarnage Island
  April 23, 2020 by Tom Arnold

  1

  A quick look at retooling Volcarnage Island to hopefully be clearer to players. No new build just yet as I'll take the time to play test more, make sure there are no major bugs and add a couple reques... Continue reading
• Better Harpoon Firing + New Mode!
  April 04, 2020 by Tom Arnold#Collision Detection, #Physic, #gamemaker

  Back in January, I had feedback that the harpoon doesn't always fire at an even distance. I also knew that sometimes it would wildly fire off to the side and latch onto a statue, especially when not a... Continue reading

  
• Implementing Harpoonable Settings in the Player Select Screen
  March 02, 2020 by Tom Arnold#settings, #UI, #Carpoon

  Implemented the settings in the player select area and finding that some like Co-op have to toggle the others! I already got tired of the menu buttons from earlier so I'm glad they're gone now. Later,... Continue reading
• Interactive Settings in Player Select Area
  February 27, 2020 by Tom Arnold

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  To try and make the match settings less daunting and not have players wait around for them, I'm going to try incorporating them into the player select area. Here's a mockup first and I'll see how it t... Continue reading

  
• Keeping It Simple
  February 20, 2020 by Tom Arnold

  1

  #UI, #buttons, #simplify, #design, #game design

  Recently I had feedback from a friend to try simplifying Carpoon for gameplay and scoring. To start that, I added some more easy to change menu options to have no AI cars and matches based off stock... Continue reading

  
• Parking
  February 09, 2020 by Tom Arnold#parking, #driving, #Carpoon

  I had wanted to try and have some of the cars park on the fly in Carpoon instead of only starting out parked. There were two main issues that I had to tackle to get parking to this point. The first on... Continue reading
• Indie Meetup Feedback & Updates
  February 03, 2020 by Tom Arnold#feedback, #Carpoon, #local multiplayer, #playtesting

  Last week was mostly trying to fit in as many finishing touches to the Volcarnage Island as I could before an indie play testing meetup on Wednesday. New features eventually went on hold as I tried t... Continue reading

  
• Team Play
  January 28, 2020 by Tom Arnold

  1

  #team, #carpoon, #custom color, #custom colours

  While finishing up the "Volcarnage Island" level, one thing I wanted to try with the two volcanoes is team play. Part of the idea for this level was to keep a tourist parking lot clear as sometimes t... Continue reading

  
• Four Tweaks from Feedback
  January 19, 2020 by Tom Arnold#Carpoon, #playtesting, #GameMaker

  Here are four gameplay tweaks I worked on in this update while also working on finishing up the volcano level "Volcarnage Island:" 1) Towing Turn Speed A problem at times has been turning while towing... Continue reading

  
• New Build Up with Volcanoes!
  December 03, 2019 by Tom Arnold#volcano

  Seeing how I added some user friendly menu buttons today, this seemed like a good time to upload a new build featuring the volcano level! There's still work to be done on some of the transitions with... Continue reading

  
• Volcano Level - Improving the Camera
  November 26, 2019 by Tom Arnold

  1

  #camera, #volcano, #gamemaker, #carpoon

  I had the first play test of Carpoon's volcano level the other day, and while it confirmed my guess that the lava balls were tough to notice, it also showed that there had to be more targets for lava... Continue reading

  
• Co-op with Waves of Enemies
  August 15, 2019 by Tom Arnold#co-op, #coop, #waves, #horde mode

  Here's a video of the new co-op mode with waves of enemies. During development, I had hit a point of "what's next?" and took the time to reflect by making a post about recent updates. I was going to s... Continue reading

  
• Tears, Tearing Apart & Resolution Update
  August 06, 2019 by Tom Arnold

  1

  #GameMaker, #Tears, #Resolution, #camera

  This build of Carpoon comes with three aspects that I wanted to tackle for a long time: tears for players after being crushed, figuring out how to handle resolution for my friend's 4K monitor, and exp... Continue reading

  
• Optimizing Carpoon in Game Maker Studio 2 AKA How I made my game less slow
  July 06, 2019 by Tom Arnold

  1

  #Carpoon, #optimization, #gamemaker, #frame rate, #game maker studio

  Whenever I work on Carpoon, it’s on my i7 desktop, but whenever I show the game it’s generally on my not so speedy i5 Surface 3. As Carpoon ran fairly slowly on my notebook the last three times wh... Continue reading

  
• Player Select Screen Update
  April 24, 2019 by Tom Arnold

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  Spent some time finishing up new player select screen art. I'm hoping this adds a bit more flair to the game and more importantly allows players to mess around harpooning each other in a sandbox befor... Continue reading

  
• Build Update + Short Term Roadmap
  March 28, 2019 by Tom Arnold#feedback, #testing

  Over the last couple weeks, I was had updated the game to play with my friends and brother during GDC. I'll add more details below but it helped reinforce a few core pillars to focus on: Testing one... Continue reading

  
• Adding a Crusher “Tell” + Car Bounce
  March 13, 2019 by Tom Arnold

  1

  #debugger, #bounce, #rotation, #spikes, #tell, #Punch-out, #Mario Party, #reeling, #Carpoon, #feedback

  A few weeks ago, I updated the crusher with a larger button and the ability to crush cars going through it that weren’t dragged. A downside of this is that players who were in the crusher vicinity w... Continue reading

  
• Adding Points UI, Tweaking Controls & More Exhaust
  March 05, 2019 by Tom Arnold#Car exhaust, #points ui

  Continuing to work away on feedback, I added in points that appear when you earn them, plus made different coloured cars worth different amounts of points using get_value() in Game Maker Studio. Previ... Continue reading
• Keyboard + Mouse support back in + Fixes
  March 03, 2019 by Tom Arnold#Keyboard, #mouse, #input, #fixes

  Finally buckled down and added back in keyboard and mouse support to Carpoon. Might not be the ideal way to play but then again not everybody has a Wavebird in Smash. You will get no animation frame j... Continue reading
• Feedback from ​Full Indie & Testing
  February 28, 2019 by Tom Arnold#Full Indie, #feedback

  Went to Vancouver's Full Indie meetup yesterday and thought I'd document some feedback here to be less likely to lose notes and check back on what and how I updated the game later. Considering how lon... Continue reading

  
• Googly Eyes....Everywhere
  February 27, 2019 by Tom Arnold#googly eyes, #carpoon, #harpoon, #harpoon car, #googly, #GMS, #gamemaker, #game maker studio, #2d

  Finally got to a point where I had hammered down enough bugs and recent feedback to draw and add in a different set of googly eyes. The technical part turned out to be not as bad as I expected, just d... Continue reading

  
• Recycling Crusher Update - Speed Detection
  February 24, 2019 by Tom Arnold#recycling crusher update

  Working on updating the recycling button graphics and coding this week for when the crushers are activated. Players had previously given me feedback that the current setup of driving through and havin... Continue reading

  
• Surface Masking, Stretching and Graphics Update
  February 19, 2019 by Tom Arnold#Carpoon, #surface mask

  Updated three things today: -Learnt how to mask an object with a surface to hide the ends of the crushers. Struggled with it but 5 min into a jog I thought of a solution. Can't stress enough that if y... Continue reading

  
• Destructible Statues - They don't make them like they used to
  February 16, 2019 by Tom Arnold#Destructible, #rubble, #statue

  Destructible statues was a feature I wanted to add a long time ago, but held off to make sure if was something I really wanted to do and not purely feature creep. With destructible statues, that leave... Continue reading

  
• Custom Player Colours + Level Art Added
  December 10, 2018 by Tom Arnold

  1

  #Custom colours, #Custom color, #level art

  This new build (controller required) has all level art in place, and also custom colours. You can cycle through colours with the left and right bumpers in the player select screen. Here's a quick look... Continue reading
• Update and feedback tweaks
  October 12, 2018 by Tom Arnold

  This update helped address some crashing issues with multiplayer, and addressed feedback from people played the game. -Added a slight aim assist -Fixed bug where if a tow truck is dragging a tow truc... Continue reading
• Carpoon Build Update
  September 16, 2018 by Tom Arnold

  There's a few issues still to fix in this build but I've added quite a few updates. I focused on 4p controller support in this build and will add back in keyboard and mouse support again later. Main u... Continue reading
• Screenshot Saturday - Sharkmobile
  August 26, 2018 by Tom Arnold#sharkmobile, #sea, #harpoon

  Started work on finishing up the level art this week and came up with the concept of animal hazards being represented by other cars, in particular for the seaside area... Continue reading

  
• Carpoon Box Art
  August 20, 2018 by Tom Arnold#boxart, #graphics

  Finished up "box art" graphics for the game today... Continue reading

  
• Controls relative to the screen and more!
  April 01, 2018 by Tom Arnold

  When using a controller, the player now moves relative to the screen instead of to the truck. Also as a result, there are a whole lot less buttons to keep track of, only left stick, right stick and ri... Continue reading
• Drawing Rotated Sprites
  March 14, 2018 by Tom Arnold#draw, #sprites, #car

  Yesterday, I decided to finally tackle drawing the enemy car. What could have been two hours work with another rough draft version like the player tow truck ended up being two days of work instead. I... Continue reading

  
• Testing out a new player sprite
  March 09, 2018 by Tom Arnold#Carpoon, #hand drawn sprites, #game art

  I had some feedback at an event that the cars were pretty tiny. I had planned to add in some hand drawn graphics at some point and it felt like a good time to try out a rough draft of some new sprites... Continue reading

  
• Controller Support Added + Updates
  March 04, 2018 by Tom Arnold#controller, #corners

  Took a lot longer than I thought to add in but I added in controller support to Carpoon. About a third of people had issues with the WASD controls with W going forward, so I added in an option. Here's... Continue reading

  
• Carpoon Update - Fuel Gauge and Longer Harpoons!
  February 14, 2018 by Tom Arnold#Carpoon, #harpoon car, #fuel gauge

  The latest build of Carpoon, which is up now, features: Fuel gauge instead of text that says "FUEL: ##" Holding down left click for longer carpoon shots! I also added a red flash plus sound effect f... Continue reading

  
• Pump it up
  February 08, 2018 by Tom Arnold#Carpoon, #fuel gauge

  Didn't want to rush in the fuel gauge UI for the "Finally Finish Something" jam, but it's done now and will be in the next build. I was pretty pumped to add it in ;) Granted later on more things can... Continue reading