Hi, This is going to be my first devlog about this game. I'm making these devlogs as part of the Continue Your Game 8 game jam (https://itch.io/jam/cyg-8)

I decided to join this jam to continue working on this game. After a bunch of failed prototypes I decided to stick with this project for at least a month and properly develop it.

For a quick introduction to the game: Snapstop is a first person puzzle game where you solve puzzles with the help of a camera that can pause objects in time when you take pictures of them.

Screen-wide Pausing

This was bothering me forever but its finally been implemented. In all versions so far the camera worked in a very simple way, a simple line trace from the middle of the screen and if it hits something it pauses that object. My original intention was always to have anything in your screen be paused when taking a photo so I'm pretty happy I got this working. 

This change affected a bit of the level design, since the player can now stand and activate an infinite amount of floor buttons if they are in view, some of the floor buttons had to be separated from the line of sight so that the player cannot pause them.

Jump pads


A new puzzle mechanic that allows both players and objects to be flung across large distances to a specific target. They can be paused as well which disables their functionality until un-paused.

I thought these were gonna be a bit harder to implement but thankfully Unreal Engine provides a nice function called "SuggestProjectileVelocity" which did all the hard work for me. 

Here's a look at a simple puzzle I quickly threw together for the jump pads.

Objects retain their velocity when un-paused

Another feature I always wanted to implement in this game, when you un-pause an object it resumes its velocity instead of resetting it. This one was never added because none of the puzzles so far needed it. Now with the jump pads in place they have a use.

Player improvements

I imported a new FPS character I made a while back which includes some nice features like viewmodel sway when turning the camera, headroll when strafing, and smooth camera when crouching.

New textures and models

Some new tile textures and metal frame models I got from an asset pack. I think they fit way better, let me know what you think.

Before:

After: