Build 5 - Testing, Updated Aesthetics, Enemy Interaction and Movement

2 years ago by ow514073

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The Fifth Build

This build introduces the ability for the player to actually attack enemies (finally), some updated enemy movement, as well as a work in progress update to the general aesthetic of the game.

Testing

A testing session took place earlier this week, wherein a bunch of people played and responded to some questions that I had posed. This session made me realise the value of asking questions which would have given me qualitative feedback, while I mostly only had "how do you feel about x on a scale of 1 to 5". I've now learnt that I should follow them up with "why do you feel this way" questions so people can elaborate on why they gave the response they did.

Some of the useful feedback I did receive was where I asked if the testers encountered any bugs or issues in the game, and someone pointed out that if you are up against a wall, you can infinitely jump. Having thought I was done with the player's movement forever I was dismayed to see this but I was also glad that someone discovered this, because I probably never would have. Another issue that people brought up was the use of middle mouse button for the player's recharge, as browsers will often hijack this for auto-scrolling. Because of this, I do have controls for all the player's abilities bound to the 1-5 keys on the keyboard, but when I add UI I should inform the player of the controls better.

Overall I think that the testing session was a good experience and gave me some good ideas of things to work on with the game.

Updated Aesthetics

The most noticeable change to the game in this build is the visual updates to various game objects. The player's sprite has changed from a square with placeholder animations to just a white rectangle, and all of the player's abilities now have a consistent aesthetic consisting of white squares. While I don't mind doing sprite work, I have no idea how to animate things, which was stopping me working on other parts of my game as I wanted to have some nice sprites before working on anything major. This was a major reason for switching from sprites to just squares, and I think that having a clean and consistent aesthetic to the game makes it a better experience.

The first object that I redid with the new aesthetic I had in mind was the player's standard projectile. In the previous build, I had a pretty simple animated projectile sprite which I couldn't figure out how to make it face the direction that it was shooting in (this was another reason for switching to a square-based aesthetic).

Image of original projectile's spritesheet.

First of all, I made the projectile a square and made it rotate. This looked a lot better than the previous projectile sprite already, but I improved it further. Adding a trail of more rotating squares which shrink away into nothing made this projectile feel more like how I intended it to, giving the projectile more of a sense of direction and coolness. After dealing with some issues with the projectile speed after uploading builds here, I eventually settled on something that worked both in the Unity editor and on itch.io.

Demonstration of the current implementation of the player's basic projectile.

The player's platform ability was next in line for a visual rework, as the original salmon pink sprite just was a bit of an eyesore. The upgrade to this ability involved making it a white rectangle, with white rotating squares "dripping" off of it.

Demonstration of the current implementation of the player's platform ability.

The next ability I updated was the player's recharge ability. Previously this ability had no indication that it was doing anything, and as an extension of this, the player would have no way to tell if they had fully restored their magical powers. This update changes this with white squares being "absorbed" into the player while they use this ability and aren't at their maximum "juice" yet.

Demonstration of the current implementation of the player's recharge ability.

While there is not any UI to indicate the player's remaining power yet, this ability does that with its animation. Because of the ability to finally see recharging taking place, I realised that the player could hold down the recharge button while attacking, which wasn't an intended behaviour. This was easily fixed by adding a boolean to the recharging script and a check which will stop the player from using their other abilities if they are currently recharging.

The player's ultimate "ground spike" was the next ability which I worked on, making it erupt out of the ground more with the addition of more rotating white squares to feel like rubble.

Demonstration of the current implementation of the player's ultimate ability.

The final ability, the player's shield, also finally got updated from the player sprite which it was originally. It now looks similar to the player's platform ability but rotated 90°.

Demonstration of the current implementation of the player's shield ability.

Enemy Interaction and Movement

Player interaction finally has been updated in this build, as the player's two damaging abilities (the standard projectile attack and the ground spike) can now damage and kill the enemies in the stage. While the enemies cannot fight back yet, that is a high priority on the list of things to do, and a lot of the code from the player's attacks can be reused for the enemies.

Enemies being killed by the player.

Adding feedback for when the enemies are hit by the player's attacks is also a priority, as currently there is nothing to indicate that they have been hurt until they vanish because they have died.

Enemy movement has also been updated, and enemies will now begin following the player instead of this behaviour having to be toggled on. They will now also jump up small ledges to reach the player as well. Updating the way that they move around terrain and making them re-chase the player if the player moves too far away from them is another thing that is being worked on.