Rats with Wings

Last week was tweaks to Wasteland in response to our wonderful alpha tester who had some great insights into what could be improved with that level. Turned out great once we fixed it up

Heya! Been working on game stuff when I'm not struggling to get my medication. Anyhow, here's what I'm working on now!

It's that purpleish wedge in the bottom center of the map. It's kinda the companion cube for our game.

I also built a ziggurat to test it out on

we're adding sprinting and zooming in to the game this week! no pictures because it's still a heavy work in progress

Escape Velocity on Steam An explosive first-person puzzler!

Update 4! "Docks" update. Grab mechanics are improved, Purple is in, saves are invisibly different.

Patch notes are on Escape Velocity's Steam page: store.steampowered.com/app/3210690/...

this party's getting CRAZY

#gamedev #EscapeVelocity #indie

beneath a night sky lit by a purple aurora, a ton of cannons point at eachother via laser lines and go just about everywhere. the level itself is a ton of greybox plinths on a lake, with mountains visible in the distance

do you like launches? today we got launches

#gamedev #EscapeVelocity #indie

may have cut a little early there. still, you get the idea

Working on something new: making the bomb better visually match how it's responding to the bomb-rope.

Normally (orange mode) the bomb explodes. If it lands near a bomb-rope, it acts different: it doesn't explode. Instead, it starts a chain reaction in the bomb-rope.

Here's how that looks: (WIP)

KICKSTARTER BACKERS AT THE $100 TIER: CHECK YOUR EMAIL! There's a survey to fill for me to design posters off of

The other theme of this level is racing a bomb-rope, which is a lot of fun. Sometimes you'll clear a corner and see the rope ahead of you and think "oh shit I'm late" but with some speed you can usually catch up again

There's some cool stuff you can do with the Starter. For example, check out this bomb-surfing!

Also visible in the clip is a bit of bomb-climbing, which is essential to this map and another bit of code I'm pretty proud of.

An overview of the Wasteland. There's a big box canyon, some narrow cliffs, a vertical maze, and some other map elements visible.

The box canyon you start in. There's a building for scale. It's roughly half the size of blood gulch (halo, 2001)

The maze. The maze. The maze.

Another level in the map. This one has the exit, which currently is just some rainbow text saying "GOAL!!"

So what is Wasteland?
For one thing, it's fucking HUGE. I think it's the biggest zone I've made yet. And there's a good reason for that! The theme here is using the Starter as a movement tool as well as a bomb-clearer. Lots of catapulting yourself around the map.

Greybox for the hub marking the start of Chapter 2. It's a bit crude, made of abstract grey/purple blocks and some brickwork laid out in a herringbone pattern. Three signs are visible: TO ANNEX (executive biome), TO WASTELAND (red rock biome), TO DOCKS (office/guts biome). There is also a door, center frame, labeled "TRIPLE LOCKED DOOR TO PROJECT MOONSHOT". In the distance is some mountains and a lake, underneath a clear night scene with a vibrant purple aurora.

Wasteland is the first of 3 post-tutorial zones, each unlocking one portion of the finale. Each zone is themed (Wasteland, Docks, and Executive Zone) and encourages players to interact with the game in different ways.

Wasteland is my favorite of the 3, because it's a lot of movement tech.

Update 3: "Wasteland" update! :: Escape Velocity General Discussions Been working on the "wasteland" maps this week so that's what I've called it, even though the wasteland maps aren't in this build...anyhow. Some quality-of-life stuff changed while making new maps for...

If you have Escape Velocity installed, you may have noticed it had an update yesterday! On the steam page (and on @itzu.bsky.social) I also posted some patch notes: steamcommunity.com/app/3210690/...

Anyhow, there's more behind the scenes than just what's in the notes! Let's talk about Wasteland.

ESCAPE VELOCITY: An Explosive First-Person Puzzler! Solve puzzles. Blow holes in walls. Fling yourself to freedom. Clock out.

ALSO WE HAVE A DEMO! It's out NOW. Try it out today!

store.steampowered.com/app/3210690/...

Have fun!

#demo #puzzle #gamedev #indie #kickstarter

Want a puzzle game like Portal and Talos Principle, with the aesthetics of Halo? Check out our Kickstarter!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/rat...

#demo #puzzle #gamedev #indie #kickstarter

Capsule art for the video game Escape Velocity (2025). Art by Foxfaer. Beneath a night sky lit by the aurora, an ant lands in a broken alien building, underlit by something green. To the left is the logo "Escape Velocity". Visible peeking over the edge of the hole in the roof of the building is a strange catapult contraption and an enormous moon. There are some trophies in a tube in the shadows on the left.

Finally, we have capsule art, thanks to the wonderful @foxfaer.com !! They did great work making Gerund (the ant) look great and also really selling the environment!

#gamedev #steamnextfest #capsuleart #indiedev #capsuleart

Stark black and white poster based on a notorious one by a chemical safety company. Text is as follows: "Itzu never wore his safety goggles. Now he doesn't need them." Image is an ant with a cane and glasses, indicating blindness. On the bottom is the logo for Volatile Solutions, the fictional company at the center of Escape Velocity's setting and plot. A slogan is attached: "Safety is our secret ingredient"

A slightly more colorful poster. "Your starter is your friend!" There is an ant hugging a weird purple gun. A little red heart between them. This gun is the starter mentioned in the poster text. Below it is a Volatile Solutions logo with a slogan: "Trust is our secret ingredient".

Multipurpose map for the ant posters. Like a lot of multis, each color channel does a different thing. R is a "roughness" map. G is a "diffuse" black-and-white color map that's re-tinted in-engine. B is a heightmap. The alpha is used for transparency. Wham. Lots of detail in a single texture.

an ingame look at the posters

Made some posters to decorate walls in Escape Velocity! Also because testing feedback indicated we needed to "Ant it up". They look flat because there's a generic "poster multi" in their material that applies folds, wear, and stains ingame (the third image is that "multi")

A menu from before the UI changes this week-- notice that it still says "Moonshot" since I made this menu before the announcement and name change. It's a terrible menu but I do miss the little animated burning effect on the blueprint's bottom edge

The current version of the Escape Velocity main menu! A lot more professional looking and more accurate to the game. Also an excuse to show off my favorite effect in the game, the aurora I coded.

Old options menu. The only option is "invert y axis" because one of our testers plays inverted and a ui option is a lot cleaner than adjusting the code every time they came over to test

new options menu! It still has some quirks I need to iron out, but it looks pretty at least.

Working on UI stuff this week! It's a HUGE difference.
here's a WIP of a few menus, with before/after shots.

hm. that's...not right. #gamedev #turningandturning

A level from Escape Velocity. Lasers shoot from the cannons to show where they aim. This isn't how it'll be in-game-- each laser only shows up when the cannon is triggered-- but for building levels it helps a lot to show where things will go.

Spent last week replacing the kinda awkward arrow arrays with a single laser-like arc. The results look neat! Also a lot cleaner for building levels and puzzles.

Before image. The walls, floor, and ceiling are the same shader-- I made a greyboxing material that contextually labels itself as what it is (floor, etc.) Lights float arbitrarily in the room, the critical geometry (rocks in lifts) is occluded by the lift shader, and the floor is gloop. Also the orb is green because for a while I thought green would be a good idea.

The beta room. Everything that was 400x400x10 blocks has been replaced by appropriate geometry, from the floors to the delivery chute to the retaining walls. The lift shader has been adjusted to show the rocks in the lift better, since they're the actual important part of this puzzle.

I don't often take pics of the greyboxing for levels since, y'know, it's supposed to be replaced later. But for this last round of maps I figured I'd take at least one before/after shot. Here's level...11? I think? of the tutorial-- Shooting Gallery.

#gamedev #indiegamedev #escapeVelocity #antGame

In the top left corner: "LIGHTING NEEDS TO BE REBUILT // REFLECTION CAPTURES NEED TO BE REBUILT" in the bottom right corner: A gun with an untextured cylinder precariously balanced on the top in the scene: A floor texture with the word "FLOOR" on it, with 1m increments marked on it

sometimes gamedev just looks plain bad. building a laser pointer and just had to admire how "work in progress" this looks. I love how test maps look and now I see how they end up like they do...

two takes on escape velocity's game icon. One is pixel art of an ant. The other is simply an ant in profile.

let's try that again.

Our first sketch for an Escape Velocity game icon was a little...dated. The current one fits much better in the steam library, even if it's a bit less colorful

this didn't make the cut for a game icon but it'd be great for a mid-90's downport

Escape Velocity, as it currently exists, is split into 4 map files. This represents the tutorial/demo levels-- after the demo is out, I'll be building the next several levels to represent the rest of the game.

As of today I'm finally working on polishing up the 4th map file! yay

Since Bluesky now has video: Announcing Escape Velocity! An explosive first-person puzzler about blasting your way out of a bad situation. Coming mid-2025.

Wishlist it today! store.steampowered.com/app/3210690/...

#gamedev

An unlit scene featuring a cannon that looks an awful lot like the beam towers of Halo. This was the temporary asset before I modeled my own.

Auto-cannon that, while not as pretty, gets its function across a lot clearer. It looks like a trackball set in a round treaded base. Arrows of energy and some air shoots out from the grilled front of it.

fun fact: the temporary model for our auto-cannon was the beam tower from halo 1. it works real well as a giant tech cannon

The current model is much simpler, but fits in the setting and physically into places a lot better. Plus I won't be sued over it

YouTube video by Rats with Wings Aurora

oh, wait, one more thing. I'm also real proud of this aurora effect. it's just pretty
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb5B...

YouTube video by Rats with Wings Orb Demonstration

Finally, here's a better look at something I'm really proud of that *did* make the preview cut: The Orb.
It's a deadly orb, and I think I got it feeling exactly that way.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8rA...