Week 8 World 1-1

This week, I’m not ashamed to admit that it’s been more than a week. Boy, goodness, do I have progress to share! World 1-1 (the MVP demo level) is effectively ready to go. I still need to decide on some test dialogue and the pacing of the level, but it’s all there! And look at this new enemy type! He basically turns my game into a beat-em-up bullet hell title. I like it!

*The Staff of Lewis* Week 8 Overview GIF

Recent progress:

  1. Started building the actual first level
    • World 1-1 is just about done (as mentioned above)
  2. Modified my physics engine to utilize dt (delta time) instead of calculating physics based on framerate
    • This helps with lag and should fix some bugs caused by the game running too fast on occasion
  3. Added a pickup that restores health
    • Milk previously restored stamina, now it restores health
    • Soda is new and restores stamina (because that makes more sense)
  4. Started adding more sound effects and music which REALLY makes things feel more polished
  5. Fixed a bug that prevented enemies from jumping on top of things (a result of the physics engine changes)
  6. Made a pause menu
  7. Enemies now notice the player whenever the enemy gets hurt regardless of how far away the player is
    • This prevents players from clearing the level without combat
  8. Created a new enemy type
    • Mages use their magic staff to shoot fireballs
  9. Added a weapon system!
    • When you kill a Mage, sometimes they drop their staff and if you pick it up you can shoot your own fireballs!
    • The weapon system is an extension of the drop table system I implemented last week and should be easily extensible (I’m thinking I like the idea of swords, baseball bats, etc.)
  10. Improved the collision filtering system
    • Collisions now honor the filters for BOTH objects and not just the one that instigated the collision which makes configuration of objects much easier

Next goals:

  1. Figure out starting dialogue for the first level
  2. Published demo
  3. Playtest using Reddit and Twitter
  4. Start experimenting with new enemy types
  5. Add in another playable character
  6. Modify level instantiation to allow for stacking objects
  7. Make rocks objects instead of part of the tilemap background