[Devlog]Production Sprint 2 Week 2

The second  week in production sprint 2 is over and after a small slumber from the developers during the Easter holidays the team got back in track and this time focusing on more pressing matters like making the game more playable and accessible.

When it comes to the visuals in the game, we’ve implemented some more VFX to improve the feedback players are getting about getting hit, frozen, dashing etc. We noticed during playtesting, that it’s at times hard to understand what is happening so we decided to work hard on improving the player experience with visual and sound effects. To the same end, we’ve implemented a test grid to help players orient themselves while they’re busy tossing hamster balls at each other. Also, some more colorful props that will be populating the space background have seen the light of day: our asteroid, space rocket, satellite and UFO will hopefully soon be floating around, enhancing the overall happy, quirky mood and atmosphere. We’re also very busy with our UI, tweaking and improving as we go.

Our first topic this week was:

1) How can we make our gameplay easier for newcomers?

This is one of the things that’s really important for our game because we want our game to be easy to pick up and play straight away without becoming completely lost on their first round.One of the solutions we came up is to add a few splash screens which explain our game and they are optional to go through.A control scheme in the pause menu and possibly if there is enough time to add a map where players can get familiar with the different type of balls and the controls.

In addition another topic that was mentioned before was also really important this week:

2) What would help to make our game right now more fun and playable?

The main reason our game wasn't at a playable state after the previous week was the constant change on how things worked in our game code wise , add to that insufficient playtesting and the recipe for destruction was almost ready.The good thing is that this iteration of the mechanics right now is playable and fun, a lot of bug fixes and just a bit of polishing made the game better.

3)How can we add more in terms of props without affecting the pace of the game?

We decided to go for a grid floor as the playing field for the players but even that makes the level feel kinda empty.On the other hand adding props to a map like that it will definitely affect the flow of the gameplay and make the experience more frustrating.As a solution we took the decision to add the props floating in the background to enrich our environment and not hinder the player movement at all while at the same time leaving as the space to see how many background props are enough.

4) What features do we think as a team are still important to add before the feature freeze?

This a pressing issue because of the time we have left right now, other than the basic features we still need to implement(animations,sound and ui menu’s) , we were thinking of how many weaponized hamster balls we can add to the game.We are still not set on any extra features that will make the cut but for sure we have decided not to add something game altering.

Production Sprint 2 week 3 plans

For the final week of the second production sprint we still need to implement the ai for the hamster enemy,some more ui elements,menu’s and sound.On the art side of things animations are the last really important thing left to be implemented with some more vfx and ui elements underway.There are still a lot of things to be done but we are confident that we will persevere!