What’s New?
Major Changes:
- Brand new tutorial that teaches good / evil players sequentially!!
- 3rd player is introduced!!
- New use for fire extinguisher to be able to freeze the ghost.
- Arrow for ghost indicating where it's aiming its skill shots.
- Switching tools by pressing A on top of the tool. (No longer need to drop your current tool in order to pick up the next)
- Cool down fill up meter to indicate the CD time (for evil player).
- Only highlight the tiles that are broken.
- Only be able to "fix" the broken tiles.
- Animation added when player is fixing tiles.
Minor Bug Fix:
- Cannon now blows up the correct tiles.
- Bigger tool indicator bubble for clarity.
- Netted player now can't fix tiles.
- Health bar no longer goes to negative.
- Hammer sound now syncs up with the end of fixing progress.
- Remove ghost physics collider for better "ghostly" feel.
- "X" indicator for fixing tiles doesn't show anymore when the player doesn't have the hammer.
- Players no longer have infinite fire extinguisher after tutorial finishes.
Minor Juice Improvement:
- Cool down lights up temporarily when ready.
- Ghost defrost sound effect.
- Highlighting tools when available for pickup.
- Health bar now "chunks" down instead of continuous draining.
What’s the Motivation?
For the major changes, we introduced a brand new sequential tutorial because play testers were confused by the instructions (e.g. which player it was for) and the false impression of ghost collaborating with the pirates in the older version. The third player was introduced to provide a more complete game experience and to balance out the overpowered ghost. The third player also allowed more dynamic decision choices (e.g. who should use what tool, positioning to trap the ghost ...etc) and gives the good player a new "collaborative" aspect to the game. We decided to let the fire extinguisher have the ability to freeze the ghost (instead of just bumping into the ghost) to encourage the player to try out different tools and play styles, and to balance out the benefits of each tool (more incentives for using fire extinguisher). The arrow for the ghost that indicates the aiming direction would make aiming for the ghost easier. The switching tools improvement was made so the picking up mechanic fits the fast paced vibe of the game. The cool down time indicator and the brief highlight of the cd indicator would make it easier for the ghost to plan out its actions and get a better sense of when the skills are ready. Only the tiles that are broken would be highlighted when the good player is facing to avoid players being confused by what can be fixed (players were able to fix walls and thin air with loading bar and sound effects). The rest of the minor changes are mostly due to feedbacks from play testers and to improve the juiciness of the game.
What's next?
Most of our features are being implemented so for the next iteration we would focus on fine tuning to balance out the gameplay according to the feedbacks we get from play testers (e.g. player movement speed, CD time ...etc) and the juiciness of the game which includes but not limited to UI update, scene transitions, sound effects, and special effects. Bug fixes and additional features might be added depending on the play test feedbacks.
