UI/Polish (Week 12 Devlog)

Spearbound Devlog, Week 12

This weeks public build of Spearbound includes (finally) a win condition, UI elements, a new title screen, music, sound effects and new game mechanics to make the game even more fun!

The Win Condition

I was brainstorming how a win condition for the game could be met, as the original game idea was to be able to kill all the enemies to pass to the next level. However in testing this with many enemies at once, later levels would get incredibly hard and not as fun to play. This is when I ended up deciding on a "collect all the objects" approach, similar to Slender or Super Mario Bros. This way it would encourage players to traverse the levels to find the objects, and kill the enemies that would drop them. I quickly implemented this into the game making a sprite, making it a prefab, placing them in set places throughout the map and making enemies instantiate them on death. Once all of the objects are collected, a door in the level is unlocked, allowing for the player to go to the next level.

Collecting a collectable, gave it physics because its fun :)

Once all the collectables are collected, the portal will activate.

UI Stuff

The next thing was to add UI, so that the user could see their health and also how many collectables they have collected. This was achieved by using the variables stored in the player to be used in an object with a Text component. Implementation was relatively simple, as similar UI elements were covered in previous projects.

UI: needs a better, more pixel-y font but works as intended, sits in the bottom right of the screen.

As well as this, I also created a working title screen, which is definitely subject too change over the next week, as it is just the itch.io banner with a play button thrown on top, but it functions and lets the player breathe before being thrown straight into the game.

That's a big title screen!

Some polish I can't show on this devlog but I promise is in the game

Aka: Sound effects and music have both been added to the game that makes the experience much more satisfying to play! When enemies die they make a nice explosion sound, the spear makes a nice whoosh when throws and a little crunch when it sticks to the wall. Speaking of which...

Wall Spear!

The spear now sticks to walls! not only that but it can now be used to climb on and traverse the environment! This makes the game so much more fun to play around with,  as it gives the player so much more control over where they can go and what they can do. This was achieved by making the spear become a static object when it collides with the tilemap, and instantiating a new object with a collider that matches the spear shape, allowing for the player to jump on top of it once it hits a wall or floor. Super fun to play around with!

Spear getting wedged into the wall to help the player get over it.

Player Feedback

This feedback session I put together a survey for more accurate responses, and overall people gave it some relatively good feedback. Some things people managed to find were some problems with the UI not scaling exactly right, which I managed to miss during development.. Another player noticed that the player was able to escape the confines of the world if they position the spear in such a way to push the player through a wall. I plan to add something that either prevents it or detects it and teleports the player back to a safe spot. 

Some feedback that were constructive criticisms but not bugs were that it was not obvious that the enemies that have multiple health would get damaged by the spear, so I will add particles and sound effects to indicate a solid hit on the enemy. 

The survey told me that the spear climbing mechanic was not clear to players, so the tutorial level will have to be modified to easily show this to the players. Once players figured the mechanic out, they all wanted to see more spear platforming puzzles, so I will also be sure to add many more into later levels.

Next Steps

With the game almost complete, I plan to make a few tweaks to the game, adding and fixing all the things highlighted from playtesting feedback and the survey. Then all that is left is a bit more polish and a lot more fun and interesting levels and the game will be complete!