During several playtests, me and Chucky realized that there was a lack of satisfaction and motivation to progress in the game and throughout different levels. We started analyzing different possibilities and came up with some sort of an xp / progression system that would allow you to unlock different tools in the game.
So basically, after playing a level, you would get XP or points (we don't know how to call it yet) based on your general performance. If you do good, you get more points, if you did bad you get less points. Very simple. With those points, you would be able to unlock other tools. In the GIF above, you can see that we only had one tool available and it was the Small explosive. I kinda did good so I got 50 points, 50 more is missing to unlock the next tool that in that case would be the Medium explosive. Of course right now it is very bare-bone but it will be expanded upon in the next few weeks.
In the meantime, I also took some time to make some night scene test. As you might know by now, we really want to have different times of day or moods between the levels. It is something that we really want to change it up a bit more. Here is a non-final WIP shot of what I worked on last week.
On the art side, as we talked about in the last blog, I worked on making the grass textures and terrain. The grass is made in SpeedTree and is affected by the wind just like the tree. Here is a first iteration of the grass.
We were not very happy with how it turned out and we decided to rework it. We felt like it was too realistic and that it lost its stylized and simplified aesthetic qualities. The next iteration will have textures that are more abstract. There will be fewer and chunkier grass patches that will be placed more carefully and strategically. The hue variation of these patches from the base of the grass to its tip (green to yellow) will be pushed even further. Of course, we plan to have different grass heights so it doesn't look as uniform as it does right now.
In the game, we wanted the player to be able to see the character that he is playing as.Here are the first rough sketches of the concepts for the "avatar" that he is controlling. I did these quickly in my sketchbook when I was "AFK". We also want to add some little characters called "baros" in the levels that you have to rescue from the collapsing structures or just avoid to kill them.
The first thing that Raph told me when I sent these concepts to him is that their faces looked too soft and young. We both agreed that we liked their proportions but that their facial features needed to change. This avatar needs to look like a hardened demolition expert, not prepubescent janitors. So, In the next few weeks, I will experiment with different outfits and facial features for this character while keeping similar proportions.
Thank you all for reading this week's blog and, until next time, we'll see you guys over on Twitter and Facebook!
