Standing Order: three ways to move, and one was wrong

One game, three views

Standing Order does not have a single way to move. It has three.

In the ORBIT view you look from above: space with no gravity, inertial movement on two axes, 360° aiming. In DESCENT you see it side-on, flying over the planets: thrust against light gravity and forced scrolling. In BOOTS you climb out of the ship and go on foot: running, variable-height jump, double jump, slide, 8-direction aiming.

Three movement models, three cameras, one single game. The ship is called HALCYON, the pilot on foot SHRIKE.

What wasn't working

We built the controls for the three views on 12 September. On paper they were fine. Then Fabio played the game.

His note, on 13 September, was blunt: the flight logic near the planets was illogical and frustrating. The interaction with the ground worked, but the flying around it needed to be redesigned.

It wasn't a bug. The game ran, it didn't freeze, it did what we had told it to do. It was a wrong mechanic. It's the most awkward kind of fault, because there is no error in the log: there is only someone playing and not having fun.

What we changed

We rebuilt the flight model and fixed the cameras of the three views. In the same pass:

• ORBIT: camera with soft delay in the corridors, fixed in the closed arenas.
• DESCENT: the field of view is asymmetric, a lot ahead and little behind, so we added on-screen indicators for threats coming from behind.
• BOOTS: the camera leads in the direction of travel and widens in fights. And falling into the void, on foot, costs a whole life, not just hull.

Then the transition: once the boss is done, SHRIKE gets back into HALCYON and you return to ORBIT with a low-intensity chase as a tail.

The version with the redesigned flight is 32, verified on 13 September.

Where we are now

From there the game kept growing. As of 15 September Standing Order is at version 44. In between the weapons arrived: for the HALCYON ship the TRIDENT, three fanned shots unlocked from world 2, and the BREAKER, a wide short-range wave from world 4. For SHRIKE the SALVAGE as the default weapon, the limited-supply SHRAPNEL grenade, the SIDESTEP dodge that makes you invulnerable for its duration, and the CASEMATE suit with a seconds counter to survive hostile environments.

The desktop package, though, is further behind: as of 12 September it was at version 16. The playable game is ahead; the downloadable one arrives later.

The game page is here.

What we take away

• A game that runs is not a game that works. The flight logic gave no errors: it was just wrong to play.
• Playtesting finds what the log can't see. Fabio's note was worth more than any automated check.
• Three views mean three cameras and three movement models to tune one by one. There is no single rule that holds for all of them.