Week 9: Beta Release!

Hey all!

Update: you can find the beta builds here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Dph7e_ozjhTejF91xARke2T6xKV5iGx3?usp=sha...

This week is our (long) awaited beta release! If you like action (somewhat) puzzle-y games, feel free to give it a download on the main page!

For the beta release, we've been focusing on polishing up the game. This includes working on clarity concerns, implementing art and music assets, as well as making the game feel better to play in general.

In terms of clarity concerns, we mainly worked on making the player aware of their meter. In practice we found it hard for the player to focus on their meter and the character at the same time, so we made the particles around the player (indicating a charge is ready) a bit more obvious. A meter drain effect was also added, to help inform the player that when they use the meter, it drains correspondingly.

In terms of assets, we implemented many models and UI components provided by our art team. This includes models for the strong and ranged enemies, as well as the cannon and its bullets. There was also a new sign model implemented which should help inform the player that they represent tooltips. We implemented new bars for the meter, as well as updated our menus to look a little better (with less Arial text). We also added a couple of animations for the player, strong enemy, and ranged enemy to help give some life into the game. The animations ideally would help the game feel a bit better for the player (instead of things just coming out). Finally, we have also added lots of new sound effects for the enemies and charge sound effects for the player. There are aggro sounds and ambient sounds for every enemy, which ideally helps the player know what they have to deal with at their current state.

We added some improvements to make the game feel better to play. This includes making the mine hitbox bigger, adding a grace zone when you just barely don't have enough meter, and adding a formal pause menu to the game. We also split the tutorial into two parts, so it's a bit less punishing losing later on in the tutorial.

Overall we're hoping these changes make the game easier to play, as well as making it more fun for the player. Looking forward we're looking to do more playtesting and get feedback on what should be improved on. We've only got a bit more until the final release so we're looking to polish the game as much as possible, focusing on actionable feedback where applicable.

That's all for this week, till next time!