Hello, everyone
TL;DR - I am adding new features for more gameplay diversity, alongside with updating the art !
After some pretty complex work the car traffic system works fine. Traffic lights will clearly notify you about incoming cars. The most obvious thing to do is to avoid walking the roads until then. But if you are risky you can try to lure enemies that will mindlessly follow you on the road. Cars have no favorites and will one shot everyone on their way. So you will have to act fast and jump away. BTW when a car runs over an enemy you still get the full bounty as if you defeated that enemy yourself. Things like that should encourage you, not punish.
Check it out in the motion:
Next thing - is the protagonist sprite update. Here is a gif where i smoke test available states and animations. (If it's not running, click on it and then click view original). It took me a whole day to update code for that. And I've fixed several backlogged bugs along the way. Added some restrictions and also removed some other restrictions. That will be covered near the end of this blog post.
Cold Shell is... well not so much story rich, to say the least. IF you want to know what the heck is going on and why do you even fight those street thugs - you will find your answers. If you couldn't care less about "another pixel indie" story you'll just bash and slash your way through, having fun along the way, until the credits roll.
But I've decided to implement some milestone roll ins to signal the player about current progression. Take a look:
Baseball coming next. I've had this idea in mind for a while. While most enemies are melee only, some exceptional individuals will throw grenades at you. Grenades are VERY painful and damaging, especially in early game, while you character is not so leveled up. In order to be capable of minifying the damage, i bestow upon you the ability to bash the grenade away with your weapon. It won't hurt enemies (never planned it) but will move the explosion area elsewhere.
Still, the grenades flak will waste crates.
Lastly, about some of the character's movement and animations restrictions removed.
Dash (jump, strafe, blink - whatever floats your boat) is a movement skill only. With low cooldown and being able to jump through enemies, making it an awesome way of disengaging enemies if they corner you for example. Overall it's a utility skill.
So, not it won't forbid using it alongside other skills.
You can prepare your charged bash (it take a couple of seconds), dash to an enemy and then unleash the strike. Tank-assassin style :)
Also, you can shield yourself, dash closer to an enemy, then go straight into a shield charge, without changing stance. Here is the straightforward application:
Those two points above are created to give you an opportunity of having your personal skill with this game to master. Apart from RPG math. Hope it works :)
Thank you for reading it all the way here. It means a lot to me.
