Window Tiling #
I’ve been going without since moving to Ubuntu… over a year ago? Ya. July 2024.
All I really need is an easy way to move windows to the left 85% of the screen so my timer can sit on the right.
I don’t have X11 so Quick Tile won’t work for me. https://github.com/ssokolow/quicktile
This looks promising, Tiling Shell for GNOME. https://github.com/domferr/tilingshell
Tada!
Tiling Shell is pretty smooth and fits my simple case handily. Maybe down the road I’ll use more of its features but for now I got what I need.
WarpLooper Fixes #
I got some feedback on WarpLooper from the previous Full Indie Meetup so I’m working on some fixes.
The players had suggestions but the suggestions are less important than the underlying problems. And the problems were:
- Dying when creating your own clone (by looping over the same area).
- Dying too much in general
- Controls are hard to use.
The first one was the trickiest. I had a playtester loop back over the same spot repeatedly by holding down the turn keys. This would cause clones to collide with the player as soon as they were created, causing the clone to explode and damaging the player until eventually the player died.
In my head it seemed like something the player should learn to avoid but eventually I realized I was ruining the fun. So now, the clone will start in a ghost mode where it can’t collide and it doesn’t shoot.
The clone will remain in ghost mode until the player leaves a hit area. Only then will the clone fully activate. Now it can collide with things, it can shoot and cause damage.
It took a few attempts to figure out the solution but hopefully this improves the experience. I’ll find out soon enough!
To address dying too much, I didn’t increase the health or reduce enemy damage. I added a hit flash, stolen from Unearthed.
It’s hard to see in this image but there’s an orange border that flashes when you get hit. I think previously players didn’t realize half the time when they were taking damage and deaths were suprising. And not the good kind of surprise.
And finally for the controls, I just reduced the turning rate. It was very sensitive which is rough on first time players which, for a five minute demo, everybody is a first time player.
Under the same vein, I increased the length of the trail. Much easier to make loops even if you’re still figuring out how to steer.