Flack: The Polishing Process (Part 1) news

If you've played the beta, you probably felt very disconnected from the main story and plot. Rightfully, you should feel that way, because it simply hasn't made itself present yet. For starters, I finally implemented the main story to the launch screen. This should allow the players to understand why Flack does what he does. Here's a glimpse:

Fancy lookin', I know. The next thing needed a little fixing was the level maker tool. Komposten mentioned a while back that it would be easier to create levels if a texture chooser was made available. My first reaction was to avoid this because I was feeling quite lazy. Recently, my brother insisted that this feature had to be done (I had to listen, he's helping with the level design). Here is the current build of the texture chooser with another change to the level makers appearance:

I believe this is a much cleaner alternative to prior updates. Next up, I began working on the campaign load-out screen. When you first select you campaign, this will pop up:

And then this:

This should make the game feel warmer and less strait-forward with the gameplay. On top of the pretty artwork, I began working with the objective system (how each level is completed). For starters, the game will take track of soul-coins collected (this includes enemies that have been defeated). Here are some of the preview shots:

My goal is to 'slow-down' the player. It's nice having the ability to blast through levels, but a lot of content can be missed at a fast pace. Players can only finish a level if they've collected more than 75% of the soul-coins offered. In other news, I added the last interactive tile: The invisible block! Players cannot see them until they have been revealed by hitting a special tile. In addition, you can walk (or roll...or whatever Flack does) on them even if you cannot see them. I think this tiles is a very fun feature:

That covers most of this weeks updates. Be sure to tune into Flack: The Polishing Process (Part 2)!

Changelog (Some may be have been mentioned in other news) Flack_v1.0:

• +Properly adjusted the hit boxes for the enemies
• +Cleaned up the level maker
• +Added a campaign chapter selection menu
• +Added options to the in-game pause function
• +Added game icon to taskbar
• +Fixed sound format issues for linux users. The game will no longer crash on startup. Quality may be effected depending on the installed java JDK/JRE
• +Added the boss: The Evil Hand
• +Added a new interactive tile: Invisible blocks
• +Added Chapter load-outs to each campaign
• +Improved the appearance, and mechanics of the boss
• +Implemented a story to the storyboard when the game launches
• +Added more sounds for the boss and new tiles
• +Added music to the chapter selection screen
• +Shrunk the audio files in order to fit more music into the game
• +Added a skip option to custom levels. If you would like to skip the current level, press 'b' to go back, or 'n' to go forward. Does not work in campaign mode.
• +Added a texture chooser to the level editor.
• +Polished the level editor again.
• +Tweaked the Boxer enemy to continue to fight even after being hit 3 times. Added minor animation tweaks as well.
• +New gameplay style: You can only complete a level if you have collected more than 75% of the soul-coins. My bro didn't like this idea, in fact, he said, "A slow java game is a terrible java game." What a mean thing to say! Yet it's true haha.

[Extra] Sneak preview of the boss: