Week 07 - Devlog - Blast Till Last

Graphics and Art

We started from scratch with the characters so they would fit the style of the rest of the game (chunky and low poly). 

The 3 most important animations have been made already and will be implemented in our next prototype. So stay tuned for that!

Here is a little preview already:

This week, it's possible to play the game on an actual stone platform. The level was decorated with different kinds of vegetation, and we even have destructible props in it!
Surrounded by trees and cliffs, you can now hop around the rocky platform with the new characters, which already gives it a much more complete feeling.

Here are a couple of shots from the current level:

Gameplay 

Destruction

Introducing DESTRUCTION! 

Now you can completely obliterate any wooden object on the level, regardless of its size! Furthermore, your shockwave can push around the debris produced by the destruction, making the shockwaves feel even more satisfying. 

This was a challenging task as while trying to achieve the end-goal, we had to restart twice from scratch as the initially planned approach did not work out. By the end of the day, the destruction is powered by PhysX APEX Destruction and allows for great performance  along with smooth integration with other elements of the gameplay.

Movement refinement

This week the movement mechanic have received an update as well. We've added a strafe-dash, so the player can have more choices about how the character can move. It's addition added more depth to the character movement by building upon the existent elements. Creating movement mechanic with a lot of depth is crucial to our game, as movement is one of the core pillars of our gameplay. 

Furthermore, we have further improved how and when the shockwave dash (triggering landing that produces a shockwave) is activated by the player. During the playtesting, we have discovered that the player can abuse the shockwave dash in a fun-breaking manner.  We've fixed it by restricting shockwave dash only to only be available to the player if the player ended up in the air due to his own jump. 

Camera refined

As apposed to previous week, the cameraman seems less drunk and seems to finally get his sh-.. shtuff together.. Faster and move improved camera actions regarding keeping everyone in screen boundaries, at, all, cost! The smooth camera movement is of course still a thing, and while we strive to get the perfectly optimal camera view, we're still happy to present the following improvements.

Same goes for going up down.

Implementations of a good HUD/UI is being developed as we speak. Definitely stayed tuned for more updates soon!