Week 4: First Level

Hey all! This week we've focused on implementing all the mechanics we had planned out on the game design document, as well as making a short level to allow the player to use the mechanics.

We have uploaded a build, as well as a video for the first level. You can find the video attached (or if you don't want to download, here is a google drive link):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iiIgcieWJlnqMHws6QtdjD6lBEyhxJAP/view?usp=shari...

The abilities for each direction ended up being implemented (for now) as follows:

• Up Ability: Attack in area around player. Enemies attacked with die
• Down Ability: Set mine behind player, activates after 2 seconds. If enemy walks onto activated mine, destroy both the enemy and the mine
• Left Ability: Roll to the left. Rolling entails moving at a faster velocity and not dying to contact of projectiles
• Right Ability: Knockback all enemies within a certain radius, stunning them briefly after they are knocked back. Currently not visual indicator.

Originally we had aimed for making the mechanics at a slower pace, but we had realised based off feedback from last week's presentation that that would likely be a poor decision. After all, if we cannot show our game is fun after all our mechanics are implemented then we will have less time to rethink how to make our game fun. For this build we've implemented the basic functionality of each of the mechanics as well as a small first level. We're looking to improve this level and/or make more levels before alpha is release. In addition, we need to playtest more to make sure the values for each of the mechanics (how much meter you need to use each ability as an example) feel good to play. 

Some other progress updates: we have implemented some basic sound effects for each of the ability, as well as dying (thank you music team). We have added a way to win the game, by defeating all the enemies. If the player gets hit by a bullet (while not rolling) or enemy, they die, which is the current lose condition of the game. We have also added a restart button (P on keyboard, options on PS4 controller), as well as a quit game button (ESC on keyboard, share on PS4 controller).

There are currently on instructions in the game right now, which should be part of the goal for alpha release, so the player knows how to play the game. I will list the controls below for clarity:

• WASD/Joystick/Arrow keys - move
• U/Triangle (PS4) while moving upwards - up ability
• J/Cross (PS4) - down ability
• H/Square (PS4) while moving left - left ability
• D/Circle (PS4) - right ability
• P/Options (PS4) - restart level
• ESC/Share (PS4) - quit game

One thing that we have not fully made a decision on (that can be seen in the above controls) is whether or not we want to require the player to be holding down the corresponding direction while using the ability. We originally thought this would make more sense with the flavour. However, after play testing it a bit it may be unintuitive to the player for it to work that way, or just not fun to play. For example rolling is often associated with being able to roll multiple directions, while currently our game only allows a left roll. Again, this would make more sense given the flavour but would require some more specific level design. We're still figuring out whether we want this restriction and we'll try to make it consistent before alpha release.

A couple other notes about the current build:

• The player can still charge meter while hitting a wall. That's something we intended to remove (and will be removed soon)
• We have 3 enemies, the ranged enemy, basic melee enemy (spider), and strong enemy. The strong enemy is orange in game, and cannot be killed through the up ability, and only can be killed through the down ability (mine)

Finally an update on the art side. We've received textures and some models for enemies from our art team, and we've been able to implement some of these (mine, walls) in game so far. The development team is still working on some of the other enemies, so hopefully the enemy models can be integrated when those are made.

That's all for this week's update! Have a great week!