Hello, I’m Gabe, the main programmer for Mitobit. This squish might be a bit more technical than previous ones, but if you’re up for it, I’ll share some interesting tidbits of the code for Mitobit.
One important aspect of making the Mitobits feel like an actual living creature is to make them move and react to their environment. For Mitobit we used a very common system in game development to help achieve this, namely the behavior tree. Behavior trees are really handy for making more complex npc behaviors easier to manage. A good way to think about how they work is to think of it like a flowchart that the Mitobits follow. The Mitobits check the flowchart sixty times per second and use information about themselves and their environment to make a decision about what to do next. Here’s an example flowchart of how the Mitobits’ food seeking behavior works.
Adding this and more behaviors help make the Mitobits feel more alive. In addition we were able to tweak behaviors and add new unique ones to help differentiate the species of Mitobits.
Closing out, here’s a funny bug that occurred during the development of Mitobit. While playtesting I noticed some Mitobits were occasionally disappearing. Looking into it, I quickly realized they were being sent far outside the playable area. It turned out that the Mitobits were getting stuck on the conveyor belts, which were constantly trying to push them. This caused them to build up a large velocity and once they got unstuck they would launch straight through the wall into the void. That small blue box on the right is the playable area.
-- And with that, we're onto our last and final Squish before the release of Mitobit! To celebrate, the very last "species" we haven't discussed yet. This is our gray Mitobit! I put species in quotes because in the story of the game, any Mitobit can become this guy without proper care over a long enough stretch of time. These critters don't tend to move around much -- including to satisfy their own needs. You'll need to feed them by hand if they're hungry. If you need to herd a bunch of Mitobit into one spot, though, these guys become much easier to care for.
-- And that's all for today's Squish! This will be the final blog post before the games' release, so if you've enjoyed reading this or any others, please consider wishlisting and checking out the game! It would mean the world to us. Thank you to anyone who's followed our little dev logs, and next time we see you, it'll be for our up and coming project (with maybe a marketing Squish between). Team Jelly Games