Welcome

Hello, it's me, Levi Ramirez extraordinaire. This is the first REAL & TRUTHFUL month of development for this Gappy Game, taking steps towards getting closer to the actual vision of what I want this game to be.

With this big shift, I believe it's time to shift The Levi Post a bit. I think in general these posts are gonna be a bit shorter, and focus more on specific things I want to talk about instead of talking about a bunch of random little things! Also, I am no longer making highlight videos, they were just too... pointless? and time-consuming, I might do something a bit different soon but my main focus right now is getting Gappy a bit more off the ground. So Hopefully reading these (and writing these) will be a little less daunting...

But enough about the logistics of a blog post, let's look/talk about how the game is coming along?

New Pair of Shoes

People liked Gappy's playground. And after a single month of improving Gappy's movement, Gappy's playground feels terrible...

It's going to be hard to explain just HOW MUCH better Gappy feels compared to his prototype debut, there are not any massive changes to Gappy's physics or even his move-set, but he just feels... better? IDK, you're just gonna have to take my word for it, but I made a little bullet-point list of some "general" changes to his physics.

• Sliding down a wall is much quicker starting out, and you fall much quicker the longer you stay on a wall, making running into walls much less of a slow-down!
• Wall-Kicking no longer forces you in an input-less arch, rather just strongly pushes you away from the wall with the ability to move back towards the wall you kicked off of, you can wall-kick off the same wall but you will lose vertical height unless you do a double jump back onto the same wall or dive.
• Jumping in the air from a dive no longer kills your forward momentum, and you have much less air friction, meaning when you dive you carry a LOT of speed in the direction you move, even when you cancel a dive.
• Ground Pounding makes you instantly charge a super-jump / super-dive... speaking of which!
• Super-dives have been changed, instead of doing a basic dive with extra height like in 'Playground' you dive out at a much higher speed than your standard dive... speaking of which! (again)
• Standard dives (both on the ground and in the air) no longer automatically put Gappy at his max run speed, but your charged dive does! (along also with just gaining more speed from running on the ground like it always has)
• In 'Playground' you lost the least amount of your dive speed (while not actively diving) in the air, this has been changed to running on the ground. The fastest way to move in the game is to dive, and run on the ground for a few seconds, chained into another dive!

Writing it all out like that really goes to show how much I've actually done to the physics, and after weeks of work, it really does feel just amazing! But what about the locales?

The Scenic Route

I know it's always exciting to see new content, but I don't wanna spoil to much at all! Besides, I do show some random tidbits on Twitter every now and then, but I'll share some stuff while I'm here!

Lots and lots of pretty landscapes! A pretty basic theme for a "general-audience" retro-inspired platformer but who cares! it's a bit sappy and overdone but I wanna take a swing at it. Besides, these are just the first few levels and I'll get my fill of basic-platformer sloch, I think the rest of the locales of this game will be a bit more interesting, but there is nothing wrong with a green and lush intro to a platformer, no matter what any Sonic fan tells you!

Also yes, I plan on having a little world map. I was inspired by Yoshi's island hand-drawn map aesthetic but wanted to do a bit more with it, so I'm treating the cursor and little level spots like board-game pieces, It's a weird mix but I think it's fun! The Card showing off the level progress you're hovering over and the matte-colored, shitty plastic player pieces are really charming in my eyes, and hopefully they are to you too!

Also, for the more observant viewers you may even notice a little friend from another LeviRamirez (TM) game! There will be lots of different character appearances from other games because I think they are fun and that's that really...

Drifter Bits

This post is coming right in the middle of March, I did almost nothing productive over Spring break which just ended a few days ago, but February was honestly pretty boring, mostly just behind-the-scene work, which will be a common theme for March's post as well. Also, expect the March Post to come out WAY sooner than this one did...

I think a big reason I put off doing this post was that I didn't really have anything to show, but you and I are gonna have to accept that there isn't gonna be MUCH to show and talk about in these posts because

a.) I'm a slow worker kinda guy, I have my grind days but I like to take it slow and easy most days, especially since I have a much healthier work/life balance now.

b.) I don't wanna spoil to much, the best part about video games is the mystery and surprise! Besides... it's much easier to post a cryptic random post on Twitter instead.

Yup, I'm back on Twitter. Definitely NOT as actively as I was a few months ago, but it's just so easy to just... POST a random thing I wanna show off at the moment. I know the whole point of these posts was to stop using Twitter and short-form media consumption but, sometimes you just gotta accept things the way they are. So many people said they were jumping ship, but nothing really happened, as per usual I suppose. It's annoying, not anyone in particular, but in general, people are so UNWILLING to migrate to somewhere better in favor of being comfortable, it's hypocritical I know but Twitter is such a fucking cesspool of anger and broken features. I don't use mobile, but even the desktop version of Twitter just feels... off? I think genuinely I'm a delusional, hippie freak but that's just who I am...

IRL HIGHLIGHT: Meeting of the Minds

ANYWAYS! NEW SEGMENT! From this point forward, every Levi Post will have me talking about 1 cool irl thang I did this month, and what a strong way to start a new segment!

I got to meet some of my beloved Newgrounds friends in the real world! I was expecting to get murdered in a Walmart parking lot but I was pleasantly surprised!

The first night I got to meet @AnnoyingDroid, @Jack, and a non-newgrounder friend of Aaron's who I can't remember the name of cause I'm terrible with names (Aaron will tell me and I'll change this). We dicked around Menards, Mejier and got some ice cream from a local joint... the true midwest experience!

LOVE WAS IN THE AIR, LET ME TELL YOU!

The next day however was the most important day, bright and early in the morning we all packed in da car and hit the road to Jungle Jim's near Cincinnati! We truly all went on the hero's journey, we all learned a lot about each other and even wielded the power of prayer. TRULY a magical night.

Sadly, Jim himself wasn't present, but we prevailed...

No joke, it was awesome to be able to meet some close NG friends in da real world, super excited to go to a meetup hopefully soon, the more people I meet the merrier! The only BAD thing about meeting everyone was that I miss them... I crave to see epic people again while Im surrounded by CRINGE people all the time... ow... oww... oww ww... noooooooo

DA END

And that's it! That's the Levi Post for March. I hope you liked the new segment, I know this was a bit of a shorter post but we are in the midst of a Levi Post Transitional phase and soon we will get to a much more grounded place between the new and the old, only time will tell!

I will see you all in da next post, have a good night everyone :-)

<3

-Levi Ramirez