Spliced Polish Update news

What's New

1. New Character Selection Menu
2. New Tutorial Scene
3. Camera Changes: Smash Camera and Zoom in on winner
4. Contra-like Controls
5. Credits Screen
6. Changed game back to Players 1 and 2 vs Players 3 and 4. Best 3 out of 5 and players switch limbs between each round
7. Scene Transitions

What's the Motivation

1. We now have a static character selection menu that displays information about each character. We also added a bar that shows the difficulty of each character. In the old character selection, new players would spend a lot of time testing all of the characters before selecting one. So, we added this scene to cut down on that downtime and to force the player to learn the character that they selected. The scene also allowed us to display the difficulty of each of the characters, as as character like the impulse grenading Jester is much harder than the double jumping Cowboy.
2. We added a tutorial scene in between the character selection menu and the fight scene. This has the same layout as the old character selection scene but players cannot change characters anymore. In this scene, we make sure the player can use all the actions of the character they selected. We make them move around, block a projectile, shoot and destroy a cannon, and then jump up into a portal that has been opened after completing all of the tasks described. This scene should solve the problem that players forget that there is a block button.
3. We added a Smash-like Camera that follows the two players around the map. Adding additional functionality to the camera was a requested feature over the past two weeks, so we decided to add it in. It may be too strong right now, so we may need to tweak it but it does add more juice to the camera. We also added a zoom in on the winning team after they win 3 rounds. It should make winning feel a little better but we need to add a good amount more to make winning feel important.
4. We add Contra-like controls for the aiming because we were getting mixed feedback that aiming should be on the right stick or that it should be on the left stick. Now it is on both sticks so no more complaining.
5. We added a credits screen because we are now proud of our game.
6. We changed back the fight flow so that players are always on the same team. We now swap body parts in between rounds so that all players experience playing the legs and the torsos. The game is now best 3 out of 5, which may or may not be right. If a team gets a 2-0 lead, the losing team may just give up. We will need to evaluate this during our playtests.
7. We added scene transitions to make the game more professional.

What's Next

• SAMURAI. IT IS FINISHED BUT... we were not able to playtest enough to balance it yet so we will add it to the final game. Here is a picture of the wall-jumping, sword-throwing warrior:
• Add a portal that sucks the teams in between rounds, so the transition back to the splicing scene makes sense
• NEW SPRITES. An artist agreed to create sprites so we will have improved sprites for the final submit
• NEW MUSIC. Hopefully, our audio guy will work with us this week and produce some music tracks for our game.
• Make winning feel good. This is a very important task that must be implement. However, we do not know the right way to do this so we will need to discuss it at length.