Week 35 - Round Three! skills, characters and level inventory.

Before you say anything, yes, I know I'm back for the third time now, even though I said last year that this would be it. But, I'm "hoping" that this time, this will be the last variation of the game before it actually goes public... Hopefully...

Any who, Welcome back to another "unofficial" developer blog! I know the title implies the 35th week (even though it's been weeks since my last post... which was actually last year), but I wanted to keep this development blog series consistent. I didn't want people asking "well what happened to weeks 35 - 40? So, I figured, just to avoid all that, I decided to keep it sequential.

So there has been some incredible development since last we spoke. At the end of last year, I ended up hosting a small competition which allowed anyone who signed up for the beta testing program to test the game and give critical feedback. The prize was a 3D printed miniature of the main character "Colin". This was an amazing opportunity to get valuable feedback as well as know exactly how players would play the game, and what issues they came across. One of the main issues initially was the player controls. It turned out that the static joy-stick was too hard to control, and seemed to miss more than it hit. Another big issue that players found was the lack of information about the "missions" and "character levels". With all this information and more, I ended the competition, gave out the prize to the winner, and pulled the game from beta, so that I could refine it once more. I then ended up take a few weeks break from development just so I could spend more time with the family, and to wrap up the end of another decade...

AND NOW, I'M BACK IN ACTION! The first thing I did to start the year off was to identify all of the key issues that the players mentioned during the beta testing. I also found a few personal issues which I wanted to fix as well. For the last few weeks I have been working on implementing a few character progression system which physically told the player what their level was, and what experience they needed in order to progress to the next level. This stuff is still being tested, so I wont really showcase that this week. However, what I can show you all is the new 'Character Skills' system!

That's right! You heard bird turd, a new character skill system which allows players to unlock and assign new skills to their characters in order to increase their chance of surviving. The skill system was implemented to add another layer of depth to the game which seemed to be lacking before. The skills unlock at different levels, and function differently to one another. Some skills allow the player a chance to destroy an obstacle when hit, while another skill allows the player a chance to revive when killed. There are many more different types of skills the player can unlock, but I'll let you discover that yourself. Here is a snippet of what this system looks like.
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As you can see there has been not only Skills which have been implemented, but a new Inventory Scene as well! Such new! Much wow! No more with that awkward rolling inventory board which dragged across the 'shop' page (although, I did like that). Now, the player has a dedicated page specifically for choosing their characters, levels, and skills. I still have a few small things to add such as the display of the chosen character/ level on either side of the screen (those floating wooden boards), and the main character display to change when the player chooses another character, as well as HUD information on what each skill does, and possibly a small tutorial on how to apply the skills, but besides that, I think its done! Hopefully people will find this more intuitive than before!

Again, I have done a few more things on top of this, but I'll save that for next week! I can't wait to show you the new leveling system, and how the rewards are displayed. Hopefully you will like that too! 

But anyway, welcome back once again to a new season of the 'Juicy Development Blog' (I should make my own TV show at this rate...). Until next time!

Thanks for reading!