Mega Man Y+1 / LM TEAM

We had to crop a ton of details about just about everything in this game's development cycle. There's just not enough space in a Bluesky thread. Please do ask about anything you want about Operation X.M.A.S., no matter how vague or specific, and we'd love to answer!

Discord screenshot. [17:39]mp3 y'olk: we should bring back player_interact_gimmicks but for only one gimmick [17:39]mp3 y'olk: as a fun bit [17:40]immortal crumb: i will kill you with a large brick you sick fuck [17:41]mp3 y'olk: no you won't [17:41]the " " one: i will supply bucket with the large brick [17:41]mp3 y'olk: you will try [17:41]the " " one: And I Will Succeed. [17:41]mp3 y'olk: you will crumble to dust as soon as you pick it up [17:41]the " " one: I am "The SUpplier" [17:41]the " " one: I xcannot be stopped [17:41]mp3 y'olk: a sad, lonely pile of dust [17:41]mp3 y'olk: colored gray or perhaps a dark green [17:42]the " " one: ooh ooh can i be purple [17:42]mp3 y'olk: yeah but only the bad kind of purple [17:42]the " " one: there is no bad kind of purple. you know what? fuck you i'm ALSO killing you with a large brick [17:42]mp3 y'olk: you're trying [17:42]the " " one: me and bucket are killing-quack-with-a-large-brick buddies

Discord screenshot. This screenshot features RRThiel under the name "E D# C B e E d D# c C b B". [18:48]E D# C B e E d D# c C b B: this title theme is really good [18:48]the " " one: #2 #6 #7 and #15 have (new) stuff in them [18:48]the " " one: the rest are blank [18:49]the sexy one: J.R.R. Thielkien [18:49]mp3 y'olk: note that we're looking for music that's good [18:49]mp3 y'olk: and not bad [18:49]the " " one: the stage list we have planned is in the pins (rc post, but missing mega 1 and mega 2, which are a war stage and a silhouette version of volt man's stage) [18:49]the " " one: yes that's important!!! [18:49]ogg y'olk: No way, Quack. Really???? [18:49]the " " one: if you make bad music we'll turn you into TTRhiel. Don't test us. [18:49]mp3 y'olk: Just clearing the air. Making sure you aren't trying any funny business. [18:49]E D# C B e E d D# c C b B: ... Tricky. [18:50]E D# C B e E d D# c C b B: But it can be done. [18:50]ogg y'olk: No.... Im so sorry guuys........ I hope you can forgive my tomfoolery........ [18:50]the " " one: right now permafrost perfection is planned to be used in hard 2 (ice) and trackin' tangle is planned to be used in easy 3 (halloween) [18:50]the " " one: we'll figure out second stages once we have more music [18:50]mp3 y'olk: it's also important to note that we run a very tight ship, so no monkey business or fooling around [18:50]mp3 y'olk: generally very serious environment [18:50]E D# C B e E d D# c C b B: Also tricky. [18:50]the " " one: yeah if you goof off for even a second it's into the gulag for you [18:50]ogg y'olk: Factbook Messager [18:50]the " " one: WET DRY [18:50]the sexy one: and no kissing men [18:50]mp3 y'olk: ginger " " men [18:50]the " " one: wait what [18:50]the " " one: nobody told me that rule [18:50]E D# C B e E d D# c C b B: now THATS where i draw the line [18:50]Pebble: [gif of tigger from winnie the pooh walking away, looking dismayed]

Discord screenshot. A caption on the top right reads "context: watch this palytest (sic) footage from croncrete https://youtu.be/_qfsGUhpKh4". [18:45]the " " one: t mobile... [18:45]the " " one: bucket do you want something hidden on the left [18:47]immortal crumb: no [18:47]immortal crumb: my corner doesnt need any trinkets to be special [18:47]the " " one: you were there for 30 seconds straight [18:47]ogg y'olk: [voice message] [18:51]hey don't forget about casshan: [voice message] [19:10]immortal crumb: [A sketch of a square person angrily hugging a wall, giving a furious middle finger to an indifferent, although perhaps disgruntled, Ballos from Cave Story.]

Discord screenshot. [11:14]the " " one: had a dream where bucket replaced wily 1 in operation xmas (we had wily stages now) and added another autoscroller midboss to it and he also adjusted b cutter to just be a reskinned buster so it can focus on the ice physics. also the actual boss of the stage (three giant cats behind the big wall the stage took place next to, also wilys fort was in France and everybody there spoke french) were being teased by me because i was inadequately dressed and intentionally pissing them off until they jumped the wall and we had to deal with it. everybody kept getting phone calls from friends who thought it was really important that we know about mcdonalds new crispy chicken meal deal. we were ignoring the calls though so eventually one of said friends decided to just burst into the weird ski resort place we were in (we were in france in real life too except both in-game and in real life it looked kinda like easy 1 with more snow and ice) to shout it out to everybody at the top of their lungs. don't remember what you guys looked like though sorry [11:15]the " " one: thought you'd want this exclusive leak into our future [11:42]ogg y'olk: Awesome. [14:54]the sexy one: just like my horoscope said

And lastly, but most importantly, there is no force on the planet that can get LM Team to take something seriously. Enjoy just a slight glimpse into the complete madness that occured during development.

We've also affirmed that, as many already know, perfect is the opposite of good. We're very happy with what we've done with X.M.A.S., and a big part of that came from our prioritising. There's plenty to improve, like Snow PBN-002 and Mystery Gift, but polishing every detail quickly kills momentum.

We've also gathered a lot of information about Y+1 in general - quite a few of the new assets in Operation X.M.A.S. are actually assets from Y+1 that you haven't seen yet. We're happy to see how well they've worked with a wider audience - now, it's time for us to take advantage of them.

What else did we learn? Well, we learned a great deal about how players use weapons - the work put into the stage select really paid off, and players were much more willing to try every weapon even after they'd found favourites. As this is a goal we've had for Y+1 for a long time, this is great!

In particular, it also is worth explicitly pointing out our rather rash decision to squeeze a bit of extra content into the game with the bonus week of development we found ourselves in. This was an awful idea - that was an opportunity to rest, and while things turned out okay, it really got to us.

Discord screenshot. [21:24]Mega Man: Bowser's Inside Story: there's [CENSOR: angler woman's sprite] for the build right does it still need [CENSOR: a wider angler woman] [21:24]the " " one: yes [21:24]the " " one: maybe [21:25]the " " one: technically [CENSOR: an even wider angler woman] [21:25]the " " one: but it could get [same censor as before] [21:26]ogg y'olk: OK so [21:26]ogg y'olk: i'm going to expect the sage servers are gonna be swamped [21:26]ogg y'olk: so i'll prepare a google drive folder to host a game download on [21:26]the " " one: atm my bigger concern for sprites is [CENSOR: the widest angler woman] [21:26]the " " one: namely are we getting them [21:26]ogg y'olk: it'll also host the pre-release because idk how else to share this [21:26]Mega Man: Bowser's Inside Story: ah fair [21:26]ogg y'olk: other than emailing actually [21:26]the " " one: bc obv we can only add them so late into development [21:27]the " " one: so my question to you is are you up to do [censor: thin angler woman] Right Now [21:27]Mega Man: Bowser's Inside Story: really depends how complicated they'd be i also have my psych final in 90 minutes [21:27]the " " one: oh that 100% comes first then [21:27]the " " one: forget about us [21:28]Mega Man: Bowser's Inside Story: aight ^^;; sorry about that good luck guys

Operation X.M.A.S. really affirmed our belief against deadlines. It came at a pretty rough time for a lot of us, and as we reached closer to the deadline, the stress really piled on us. J8-Bit, I'm calling you out for this - don't try and do work for the game 90 minutes before your psych finals!

DEADLINES SUCK IN HOBBY PROJECTS
LM Team's internal culture has always been to put real life before the game, no matter the consequences. Volunteer-made video games simply are not worth stressing over. As such, we have a strict no deadline policy internally, even if it means we have to cut content.

Half an hour before embargo lifted, we submitted our final build, and you know rest of the story - on December 8th, we released Operation X.M.A.S. to a great reception! So, a year on, what did we learn from making Operation X.M.A.S.? Well, there's one thing in particular that has stuck with us...

A dialogue box with a blank mugshot, marked only by a blue background and a question mark. The dialogue reads "I AM MR. PATH."

Of course, these are top secret. You'll have to play the game to find them...! The first was found very quickly, but a whole year on, it seems our community at LM Pub is only just now beginning to decipher our second secret. If you figured it out already, pipe it down and let them puzzle over it!

A strange purple room with blue intricately patterned walls. Mega Man is stood underneath a strange golden brick with a single eye, which stares down at Mega Man.

Originally, that was all, but we found out rather late that the deadline was a week later than expected. We decided to squeeze in two last secrets to find. After all, after Mega Man Y+1 demo's great Final Message to its players, how could we not?

Once we knew what direction to go, Croncrete took over here, and is behind all of the bosses in Operation X.M.A.S.. Snow PBN-002 was a rather haphazard idea - RRThiel was already part of the team, so why not share the festivities with our SAGE 2020 sister project? We know PBN-002's name, by the way.

Discord screenshot. 17:10]the " " one: i am now only 50% sure [17:12]the " " one: fuck had the thought that if we were to have a custom final boss having reggae in a fucked up big santa machine could fuck (as a bait and switch, wily is unassociated with the thefts) but that would indirectly spoil the actual reggae machine bait+switch [17:13]the " " one: . new stupid idea [17:13]the " " one: i don't know exactly what the justification is. i just know i want to fight it. [An image of Big Eddie from Mega Man 7] [17:15]DP on woke up: if you do it has to explode into a bunch of bolts upon death

Discord screenshot. [17:36]the sexy one: the final boss is mari lwid or whatever its called [17:36]mp3 y'olk: do you never get scratchers for christmas [17:36]the sexy one: the horse head [17:36]the " " one: no [17:36]the " " one: [replying to the mari lwid message] daz would be proud [17:38]mp3 y'olk: sad [17:38]the " " one: a mari lwyd machine could go hard. literally nobody bar like four people would get it but i like the idea of wily insisting that he has to be part of the light celebrations [17:38]the " " one: and it is already a skull

Discord screenshot. 17:11]the " " one: easy 3 has a boss if we have the resources later on we could give each 3 stage its own boss (so 2 extra bosses as mega 3 already has one) [17:12]mp3 y'olk: i forgot easy 3 had a boss [17:12]the " " one: and i had the Fun Idea of a hard 3 boss being smoke man or w/e who at the start of the fight [A mockup of Mega Man stood in a boss room, facing off against a very old sprite of Volt Man.] [17:12]the " " one: immediately blaze glazes and covers the arena in smoke for the rest of the fight [Image of the same boss room, but now with smoke completely covering the floor and both combatants. Unlike the smoke in the final game, this completely covers Mega Man.] [17:13]mp3 y'olk: good [17:13]the " " one: only does basic attacks to accomodate for this being mean, and he'll pop out the top every now and then to show where he is, but otherwise you've got to use other context cues to figure out what's going on [17:14]the " " one: (i was going to suggest a chimney sweep sweep woman or w/e but either it makes no sense for them to cover the arena with smoke or, if they smoke like smoke man, i'm making delinquent girl #3)

Boss fights were always a big "maybe" for Operation X.M.A.S., and only were fully confirmed in mid November. As such, there's tons of wacky ideas left on the cutting room floor from before we knew what direction to go. Amusingly, though, Wemorm was planned all the way back in September.

Tilesets only finished being worked on by the 25th November, and the very last sprites were finished early on 7th December - just before release! It really was a mad rush to the end, and I can't thank rcrdcat, MiniMacro Sound, eviemaybe, J8-Bit, Pebble, ThatArtisan, and croncrete enough!

Sketches of "Pipe It Down"'s tiles. Included are pokers, coals, bricks, grates, and wooden planks.

A list of each stage's themes and ideas for its tiles. It reads as follows: E1 - aurora. snow, aurora borealis bg, city bg, city/mechanical tiles E2 - beach. sand, rocks, chests, mechanical tiles, beach umbrellas E3 - halloween. spooky grass, haunted castle, pumpkins, statues M1 - ? M2 - snow. gingerbread houses, frosting snow, candy platforms M3 - yoku. snow globe bg, blizzard, yoku blocks fading in/out, mechanical tiles H1 - lightbridges. electronic appliances (plugs/outlets, cords), mechanical tiles, virtual bg H2 - river. large trees bg, icy rocks, baubles, water, mechanical tiles H3 - chimney. bricks, grates, pipes, coal, smoke, pokers for spikes M1 - toxic M2 - volt M3 - timber

Sketches of various tiles that would be used in Nightmare Before Christmas, Rock in Glass House, and Cyberian Stormwatch, along with mostly unused tile concepts for Overtime Shift. These all match the descriptions in the previous image.

The struggles with deciding level themes was especially bad here - the longer we took deciding a level's theme, the less time artists had to tile it. As such, while levels like Cyberian Stormwatch were being worked on for the entire period, many were completed quickly after being planned.

By far the biggest stress point of Operation X.M.A.S. was its graphics. 9 levels, 6 weapons, lots of new enemies and gimmicks, and lots of various odds and ends - all in two months AND with requirements only becoming clear as we go along! I can't understate how hard things were for our artists.

There's quite a lot of unused music that didn't make the cut. Some of this music went on to be used in other projects, so we can't show you all of it, but there's still plenty to listen to! drive.google.com/drive/folder...

Unlike usual, where level music is made specifically for a specific context, the music was mostly composed completely independently in the interest of time, and then we inserted music wherever it best fit. This worked out great - with less restrictions, the music ended up incredibly unique.

Discord screenshot. [09:03]ogg y'olk: at here or at everyone i'm thinking to get rrthiel involved with xmas so that i can focus on sfx as we desperately need a lot of them who here is on board with that [09:04]the " " one: i think it would be really funny [09:22]ogg y'olk: yea [10:10]mp3 y'olk: sure [10:16]ogg y'olk: ill wait for a few more responses before i act on this [10:16]ogg y'olk: i think theres probably a few in here that might not know thiel actually [10:17]ogg y'olk: lead dev on megaman perfect blue he also make music like this here https://www.youtube.com/@rrthiel/videos [A Youtube embed of RRThiel's channel. The description reads "I post gay hentai".] [11:25]the " " one: accurate channel description [11:25]mp3 y'olk: i'm glad it's still that

Discord scerenshot. [17:19]the " " one: the threl zone... [A screenshot of a truncated Y+1 dev server. The only channels visible are ones that read "imax-force-update", "merry-christmas", "comedy-arena", "bot", "funny-stuff", and a voice chat named "Insufferable Gaming."] [17:19]the sexy one: make a gay baby jail channel purely for thiel interaction purposes [17:19]the " " one: there'd be inevitably a few stuff that can be inferred [17:19]immortal crumb: or we could just trust thiel idk [17:19]the " " one: but it's more for formality's sake i think thiel can probably be trusted yeah [17:19]mp3 y'olk: yeah [17:20]the " " one: however: the bit always comes first and putting thiel in a stinky box is funny

While the music team originally would've consisted of MelonadeM and MiniMacro Sound, the latter was already spread thin with programming and spriting, and the former was busy at this time of year, so half way through development, we made the decision to enlist the help of a certain RRThiel.

Music was something we figured out the scope of very early on. Arranged music was practically never in the cards, and the original plan, accounting for 12 stages, was that each stage theme would be used in 2 different stages - hence why the final game has 6 pieces of music across 9 stages.

Discord screenshot. 15:51]the sexy one: medium 1 is in a store [15:51]the sexy one: christmas shift at target [15:51]the sexy one: that or chinese restaurant [15:51]mp3 y'olk: target bunby [15:51]mp3 y'olk: target bunby [15:51]mp3 y'olk: target bunby [15:51]the " " one: >last minute gift shopping on one hand why di- [15:51]the " " one: CHINESE RESTAURANT [15:51]mp3 y'olk: YOOOOOOOOOOOO true [15:51]the " " one: to finish the thought [15:52]mp3 y'olk: (jewish christmas) [15:52]the " " one: on one hand why didn't we think of that on the other hand the obvious gimmick is time pressure and hard 2 is that [15:52]the sexy one: fried chicken enemy (japanese christmas) [15:52]the " " one: however if we're doing stuff like southern hemisphere christmas and halloween [15:52]the " " one: i think chinese restaurant is a really good call [15:52]the " " one: or just in general What Do People Who Aren't Western Catholics Do For Christmas [15:53]the sexy one: yes [15:53]mp3 y'olk: what enemies do we have that would fit a chinese restaurant [15:53]the sexy one: Yang's Chicken Christmas Party

While the Easy and Hard stages were quick to figure out, Medium stages for whatever reason proved much more troublesome. In particular, Overtime Shift was just a generic Yoku Block stage for a long time, and Takeout Take Out's theme was only decided on November 11th - another save by evie!

The main issue we had with deciding on levels was theming. There's only so many things about Christmas, and each needs to be visually distinct and tie nicely to its enemies and gimmicks. One amusing idea that didn't make it in was a "War on Christmas" level - a literal warzone.

Discord screencap. [20:59]the sexy one: what about like [20:59]the sexy one: Beam Things [CENSOR: A stretched image of Melon Man doing the Omni-Man squatting meme pose.] [20:59]the sexy one: as the easy 1 gimmick [20:59]the " " one: keep it secret [20:59]the " " one: what are Beam Things [20:59]the " " one: do you mean Force Beams because good lord that's fucked up [20:59]the sexy one: like flamethrowers or the magma man lasers [20:59]mp3 y'olk: if they have gotten to that point and do not understand how to play mega man it's kinda not worth it lmfao [20:59]the sexy one: thing that does damage in an area with specific timings [20:59]the " " one: [replying to minimacro sound] no that's not my point [20:59]the " " one: my point there is just that it'll be funny [20:59]the sexy one: gets the player used to how far they jump, how fast they move [20:59]mp3 y'olk: oh ok [21:00]mp3 y'olk: Much like in Y+1! [21:00]the sexy one: teaches them that mega man stops and starts instantly [21:00]the sexy one: by making them move [21:00]the " " one: actually a very good call

The knowledge that people who've never played Mega Man before (or haven't played in ages) informed a lot of our level decisions. One particular example is in One Snowy Christmas Eve - eviemaybe suggested using something akin to force beams to do double duty as a teaching element and as a threat.

We knew very early on that we wanted to split these into 4 difficulties - Easy, Medium, Hard, and Mega. SAGE is ultimately not an event aimed at Mega Man players, so easing players in while also catering to our main audience was a major concern. As the main doc shows, lots of ideas were considered.

Levels were an equally tricky matter to figure out. Amusingly, in spite of originally planning for 12 stages, the 3 stages we cut were some of the first stages planned, being Christmas spins on our 2020 demo Robot Masters. These would even have come with special extra-hard Robot Master fights.

A cute looking sketch of Mega Man using a string of Christmas lights like a whip. A tag reading "CRACK" is in the top right, and underneath is a copy of the first sketch, with the Christmas lights now broken, with bullets shooting up and down from them.

Very crude and low-resolution sketches. An orange blob that could potentially be described as Mega Man can be seen throwing a yule log, which seems to roll along the ground. A tag reads "can aim like [CENSOR: a weapon]". A blue blob is jumping, with a snowflake surrounding it. Another tag reads "short range melee. mm11 style move cancel. snowflake spikes reach further + more damage". Finally, a green blob stands in front of some small trees, the trees being bigger the further from the blob they are. The tag reads "ground crawling trees. grow 1 at a time. each bigger than last. at max size, stops + shakes baubles off." An arrow points from that to a sketch that could be argued to be a depiction of that described behaviour.

Discord log. 20:45]immortal crumb: really bad idea [20:45]immortal crumb: a weapon that freezes 1 enemy directly in front of you [20:45]immortal crumb: and the enemy you froze is placed in your hand and you can throw it like super arm [20:49]mp3 y'olk: that would be really funny [20:51]the sexy one: Grinch Grip [20:54]Pebble: this is just the ice flower from mario [20:57]immortal crumb: thats fine [20:57]immortal crumb: the more i think about this the more i want to do it [20:57]immortal crumb: maybe make it bounce around [20:57]Pebble: would it be funny if enemies had like unique sprites for being frozen [20:58]immortal crumb: it would but it would also be a lot of effort [20:58]immortal crumb: maybe i could set it up to where as if we have a unique sprite for a frozen enemy it will use it but it will otherwise just use the frame it was last at [20:59]Pebble: wait that sounds funnier actually [21:00]Pebble: i was just thinking of like 1 unique sprite where it looked stunned or something but thinking of a sniper joe being frozen mid-shot is funnier to me

Five stickmen. An orange one named "carol" stands surrounded by 4 musical notes, which have arrowss depicting boomeranging arcs. Tags read "this diagram is a mess" and "imagine power stone if it was a boomerang and pierces. mega man is paused in place until the projectiles return. damage is higher at the peak of the arcs." A magenta one named "santa" stands underneath a sleigh flying overhead, dropping bombs. Its tag reads "it's rush bomber but good. however it has too much star overlap :(". A pink one named "pillow" is throwing a pillow, which bounces off of a Metall's helmet and falls to the ground. Tags read "metal blade" on the initial throw, "is now stunned" on the Metall, and "now true piercing" on the falling pillow. A green one named "pine" is holding a tree-shaped drill diagonally up. Its tag reads "drill held diagonally up while you hold fire. when you let go it fires off moving slowly. pierces, slows down slightly while going through an enemy (but not so slow that it's always going to kill). Finally, another green one named "wreath" is surrounded by a green circle. Its tag reads "hold button for a ring of piercing pain around you (not a shield)". A smaller stickman is next to it, who is stood by a Shield Attacker with this same green ring, and another tag that reads "leaves a slight wreath on enemies it hits which deals slow damage over time for a bit".

Speaking of weapons, it wasn't until November 1st that the weapon set was cemented. Early on, the weapons weren't even Christmas themed! It'd take forever to go over every weapon, so here's some mockups and conversation logs of particularly notable favourites that didn't make the cut.

Discord screenshot. 16:22]the " " one: trying to figure out a clean stage select menu how small do we reckon we can make a stage "mugshot" the more i try and make this menu idea work the less i'm sure it's a good idea but i'll finish making the sketch anyway [16:22]mp3 y'olk: 32 x 32 if we're real smart [16:22]the " " one: including border? [16:22]mp3 y'olk: no [16:23]the " " one: definitely an issue for this premise then because 24x24 is realllly pushing it [16:27]the " " one: yea this is bad [IMAGE: A sketch of a stage select layout split into 2 halves vertically. On the left are buttons for the player to press, while on the right are descriptions of what the player is hovered over. Two versions of this are presented - a stage select version and a weapon select version. These are presented comedically, with a stick figure doing a handstand on the stage description, and weapons like "P. BLAST" described on the weapon select.] [16:28]mp3 y'olk: i don't hate this [16:28]mp3 y'olk: tbh [16:28]mp3 y'olk: if we have a stage picture [16:28]the " " one: it's cool but [16:28]mp3 y'olk: i would just use a number instead [16:29]the " " one: space: how the fuck do we fit in 12 stages neatly here? (rough testing suggests that 4 sets of 3 makes things a bit easier to fit than 3 sets of 4) clarity: the weapon select screen in particular may be a bit hard to interpret continuity: once you select a stage you can no longer see the stage you're choosing weapons for

Discord screenshot. [16:29]mp3 y'olk: ok hear me out [16:31]the " " one: Witness Testimony [16:33]mp3 y'olk: hold on i'm making picture [IMAGE: Another stage select, this time split horizontally. Notably, the top half includes the entirety of the stage select, while the bottom half includes the entirety of the weapon select. The layout is fairly cramped, with very little room for descriptions or cursors.]

Discord screenshot. [16:39]the " " one: we'll want Exceptional Menu Clarity [16:39]the " " one: we know how buttons work [16:39]the " " one: but sonic games? famous for having no buttons [16:40]mp3 y'olk: bottom bar can change text dynamically [16:40]the " " one: true [16:40]mp3 y'olk: when selecting stages it could be "shoot - back start - continue" or something to that effect [16:41]mp3 y'olk: actually that would apply to both of them [16:41]mp3 y'olk: plus since this is more of a menu we can have an infobox [16:41]the " " one: armory is still lacking in info though [16:42]the " " one: doesn't have a clear showcase of what weapons you've picked - i actually only just noticed that you have outlines to show what the player picked plus the buster should not be one of the options - that should be locked into your loadout [16:42]mp3 y'olk: we could like [16:42]mp3 y'olk: make the non-selected ones darker [16:42]mp3 y'olk: and/or have a mini arrow like the pause menu does [16:43]the " " one: lacks clarity [16:43]the " " one: we need to be showing the player they need to pick 3 weapons [16:43]the " " one: and what that looks like [16:43]the " " one: given we are explicitly trying to get non-megaman players with this [16:43]the " " one: we cannot afford to cut corners [16:43]mp3 y'olk: 🤔 [16:44]the " " one: if we're lacking in space [16:44]the " " one: and we reckon we can compress the stage preview a bit [16:44]the " " one: it doesn't have to literally be a 50/50 split [16:44]the " " one: the stage preview "half" could be smaller [16:45]the " " one: thus meaning that the stage select and weapon select get more space to breathe

17:07]mp3 y'olk: [An image of a new stage select mockup, this time presented extremely basically. A small white bar that reads "STAGE NAME" is on top, followed by a thick red bar. Then, a thicker white bar that reads DESCRIPTION, followed by a very thick dark green bar, and finally a thin blue bar. To the right of the dark green bar is a light blue bar. This vaguely reflects the layout the final version of the stage select uses, except the red and green bars are swapped.] [17:07]mp3 y'olk: (dark green is stages light green is weapons) [CENSOR: A big black bar with white text in the middle that reads "irrelevant stuff".] [17:09]the " " one: this might be good i'm actually not sure whether it's preferable to keep the options you're adjusting in the same spot so that you don't have to re-direct your attention, or whether it's better to have the scroll i suggested as that way it's clear that the entire menu changed and you need to do more things [17:10]mp3 y'olk: my thing is that having only parts of the screen scroll looks badass [17:10]the " " one: this is true anyway because the bottom bar stays stagnant [17:10]mp3 y'olk: yeah but more of it does with this [17:10]mp3 y'olk: also like [17:11]mp3 y'olk: i feel like people will either figure it out immediately or spend maybe 5 seconds being confused as to why they can't progress before they notice that the part of the menu that scrolled in requires their input

One of the first things we planned was the stage select screen. Tons of thought was put into this, with player psychology being a major focus - for example, the stage description remains visible as you select your weapons, and weapons are vaguely organised by their use. (Shoutouts to Gunstar Heroes)

Mega Man Y+1 Operation X.M.A.S. Retrospective Timeline!!!!!!!!!! (by colgate do not steal) SEPTEMBER: 10th - Invited to Christmas SAGE 16th - Discord channel created, Operation X.M.A.S. direction finalised. 17th-24th - Early planning of overall scope, level concepts, required weapons, and potential spaces to expand or cut on scope. 25th - Programming begins for real. 27th - First weapon set proposal is made. Most weapons are unrecognisable. OCTOBER: 6th - Shooting Star's first version are made, which quickly iterate into its final version. 7th - Down-Under Beach is implemented. 8th - Gingerbread Men's first versions are made. By this point, all 3 Easy stages are also fully conceptualised. 11th - Logo begins to be made. 14th - Gingerbread Fortress is implemented. Frosty Sentry's first versions are made. 19th - Reindeer Dasher's first versions are made. 22nd - Mystery Gift's first versions are made. 24th - Stage select screen begins to be implemented. 27th - Overtime Shift and Pipe It Down are implemented. 29th - Playtesting begins. 31st - Cyberian Stormwatch is implemented. The first iteration is notable for being a completely different layout and enemy selection to the final version, but it contains Y+1 spoilers so you don't get to see it sorry! NOVEMBER: 1st - Carol Cast's first versions are made. This iteration of the weapon is just a melee weapon at this point. 4th - One Snowy Christmas Eve is implemented. 8th - Nightmare Before Christmas is implemented. 11th - Rock in Glass House is impelemented. At this point, this stage is a fair bit longer than the final version, but would be cropped later that day. 13th - Logo is finished. 15th - Wemorm is implemented, Carol Cast is reworked. 19th - Takeout Take Out is implemented. 20th - Gummy King is implemented. 22nd - Snow PBN-002 is implemented. 23rd - Time Trial support (re)added. DECEMBER: 1st - First release candidate added. 2nd-6th - Secret Activities. 7th - Version 1.0.0 created.

On the 25th of September we begun programming, having planned out more than enough to get started. This means that, from the beginning of programming to the original deadline, the game took 66 days to make. That's right - this game wasn't made in 3 months, it was made in 2! This sucked don't do that

A screenshot of the Gummy King from Mega Man Y+1: Operation X.M.A.S., looking thoughtful and confused. A question mark hovers above his head.

12 stages? 8 weapons? An endless mode? This all sounds woefully like overscoping - and it is! While part of this is wishful thinking, we also are experienced at this point, and we know how to plan for downscoping. So, knowing that we could cut a ton of content, we went ahead with this.

However, we decided that Christmas Chaos was far too risky - we had no idea if the premise was fun in practice. So, we stuck with X.M.A.S., and astute readers may notice its proposal document is... odd. docs.google.com/document/d/1...