Hi again!

This is Octogroup, bringing you yet another o-fish-ial update on Gimme a Hand! This is our last devlog before the game’s official version 1.0 release. Read on to see what updates we’ve made during development this time around.

New Feature: Tutorial

One of the major updates in this devlog is the addition of a tutorial. We aimed to strike a careful balance: informative enough to guide new players without breaking immersion, and unobtrusive enough to avoid slowing down experienced teams who want to speed through the game. The goal was to let seasoned players continue progressing while still ensuring first-time players could learn the mechanics intuitively. We chose text-based instructions and broke down each mechanic using a divide-and-conquer approach.

The order of controls taught is as follows:

1. Movement using the left joystick on a flat plane.
2. Vertical tentacle movement with the right joystick.
3. Introducing Grabbing.
4. Pulling to move the body.

Each section only moves forward once players perform the required action. This ensures active learning without forcing anyone to linger unnecessarily. For fast players, the tutorial completes naturally, since these mechanics are essential for progression.

Other features of the tutorial:

• Visual: colored circles to indicate task completion. This is an early-stage design, and we plan to improve it later in development.
• Audio: we introduced Tickles the Octopus’s voice. While not a real voice just yet, this is the first time players hear Tickles speak, which adds charm and helps immersion. It also makes breaking the fourth wall feel intentional, rather than distracting, and keeps the tone playful.

Visual Updates

• A shiny new game logo / icon… GAH! 

• Updated UI sprites (matching colours to in-game tentacle colours)

• Say hello to Hamza the Hammerhead Shark Toy! (We’ve replaced the old hammer model with this little guy to fit with our theme.)

• Environment textures were added to make it look more playful and aquarium-like :)

Programming Updates

• General bug fixes
• Hammer head bonk (sound effect and visual gag for juice)
• “Cannot grab” feedback (visual X indicator and audio queue)

Audio Updates

• Join player controllers SFX were added to the start screen UI
• Audio feedback for the hammer (when it hits Tickles’ head)
• Tickles got voice recording dialogues. Tickles can now speak to explain our gameplay and tutorial to the players.
• Celebration noises for when you win the game :)

Technical Art Updates

• Started designing the lighting for the levels
• Updated shader to show shadows under objects with the new lighting
• Colours / Tint of the directional light are in the process of being tweaked to ensure the game still looks bright and colourful, but suggests that it’s taking place at night as per our game’s original narrative (which has the potential to be revised in the future)

Next steps

Octogroup’s next endeavor will be to prepare the game for this year’s CNE, a.k.a. The Canadian National Exhibition, which takes place in Toronto every year. We’re proud of how far we’ve come so far, but we’re not done yet; there’s still more to come. Gimme a Hand has changed so much since we made our first game prototype, and we’re so glad to share what we made with you.

Tickles is all grown up now! 🤧

Thank you for following the development of Gimme a Hand. We hope you have fun with the latest version of our game! 🐙🫧