week 30 - The combatants are ready!

Welcome everyone to this weeks Dev Blog! It has been a while since I've kept you up to date, and there is a good reason for that. For these last few weeks I've been working away with implementing new character customization. Introducing;  Sporadicus the Gladiator, Hop the bunny, Hook the pirate, the Ninja, and the Barbarian! 
​

I'm thinking maybe I'll change up the names a little later, probably even a competition for the community to name these character, but we will see how we go. I plan to implement more later down the track, but I feel as if five is a good number to start with!

I've been working away at implementing a system allowing me to integrate each character with ease. Since redoing the original character, It was quite easy to implement new characters into the game using the same method. Since Spine2D is based on individual assets, I could easily replace the assets of the original character with the newer character assets by redirect the image folder location to the new asset folder, which then Spine2D would automatically update the character with the new assets. Simple!
​

From creating new characters, to implementing them into the engine, I found it very easy to update. All I needed to do was change the folder location of the player character to the new asset folder within the game engine and it simply replaced it with the new character. It was very important to make sure that the animations did not change names since Spine and Stencyl looks for particular animation name spaces.

Here is the end result of each of the characters. I don't want to show off too much, otherwise I would spoil some of the surprises. Enjoy!

On top of these, I've also managed to design one of the two backgrounds I wish to implement into the game. Each environment will have a specific design mechanic based on the environment chosen. I plan to have two new environments; Desert and a Tundra. The desert will have a sandstorm like effect which can hinder the character vision, making the game-play slightly harder. The tundra will make the character slide around more than usual.

You might be thinking "why have a harder level, when I can just get a higher score using the default level?" Good question! What I'm planning to have are multiple high-score boards so that players at different difficulty levels can compete to challenge each other. Something I'm testing, so this is definitely going to be one for the Beta testers!

Besides these updates, that's basically it! Next Dev Blog I'm hoping to have all backgrounds implemented and showcased as well as the shop system set up. Then it's the final stages! Woooh! I can see the end!

Until next time,
Thanks for reading!
​