Arachnoise Devlog
June’s makers massive monthly game jam Theme: Connections. Participants: Matthew Mcleod (vai) - Lead programmer Rene (raptor/me…) - Artist and programmer Dean Salavant (denz_thehuman) - Sound designer Ted (granularbiomes) - Sound designer
Summary#
Jam presentation -
Home edit -
Midi controller working -
Exploring character physics - (vector and IK rope physics)
SOURCE TEXT#
There were multiple sound designers so it seemed like a great opportunity to involve music and sound in the game concept. Matthew came up with an idea to make a circle of fifths music theory-ish game. We took some time to talk to each other about what it could be, combining each of our skill sets to see what could make sense, what could be achieved in the time frame, and who could make what part work. Dean and Ted were crucial in figuring this out, as they were more familiar with music theory. Big point to make here: No one knew what the game was yet, but we all started pecking away at figuring it out until the idea started taking shape.
Matthew is a code magician, and he had an idea of how he would try implement this, or atleast have an interesting challenge. I knew I could animate the sprites we needed, and had an idea of how to break apart my drawing assets into useable, modular things for the web. We have made things before that were scenes comprised of individual drawn elements which has been a useful technique.
Dean and Ted worked on creating all the different chords and notes that went into the circle of fifths, as well as the ambient sounds and a kickass mosquito sfx. It was so inspiring to have their enthusiasm and brains involved.
The idea focused around training your auditory perception to hear and identify notes and chords, and hop around a web as a cute spider trying to catch prey. By the end of the jam we had implemented a paralaxing background, a playable, animated spider character that could run up and down the web, which had 7 different musical chords running up the 13 web strings, which made up the circle of fifths, and as the spider runs over them it plays the corresponding chord. We didn’t get to implement a full game loop, but we did end up with something like a spider piano! Here’s our jam presentation https://presentation-vids.noetic.work/arachnoise-jam-presentation.mp4
When we got home I finished the title screen and added that as a paralax, and we finished up some basic mosquito behaviour to try and have the spider catch it. https://presentation-vids.noetic.work/arachnoise-game-jam-demo.mp4
We still have a few ideas and things we’d like to finish implementing with this game to have a playable demo, possibly a cute playtopia exhibit, including a novel controller using a MIDI keyboard (which we’re busy implenting and you can currently move the spider around with it). https://presentation-vids.noetic.work/IMG_3362.MOV
We’re also playing around with some rope dynamics for the web and what a spider character would feel like with more physics (especially if it’s running around a physics web) https://presentation-vids.noetic.work/recording_20260628_162235.mp4