This has been a very productive week for the Demolition Island team here at Almost Above Average Games. Here's what has been added to the game this week.
Changes
- New game objective! Capture and hold the flag to gain points. Each second you have the flag is a point. Jumping through FireRings gain you extra points. First player to 60 points wins the game, but watch out other players can ram you can steal your flag!
- Car part pickups have been placed around the map in a much more organized way. Low level parts are easy to get to, but the best parts take a lot of skill to get.
- New drops! In addition to rockets we have added landmines and shields. Landmines can be placed on the ground by players, but be carful! Running into one will send you flying! Shields on the other hand protect players from rockets and landmines.
- Rockets revamp! Rocket drops this week saw a decrease in frequency and damage. Additionally players can no longer just select a player and hit them. Players now need to get in range and be looking at a players to hit them with a rocket.
- Tutorial and ready up revamp! We have altered our tutorial and ready up to be much more interactive and informative.
- Map changes! We have changed a lot of the map this week, spreading out the volcanoes, adding a lava pit, new ramps, and starting platforms are just some of the changes coming to the island.
Motivation:
Last week our game struggled to find balance. Rockets were far too powerful causing players to become very frustrated while playing. From this we decided to tone back the rockets and to add landmines and shields to counteract the rockets. We also found that our game loop was far too long (the rockets were a large factor to this), but none the less we decided to move away from the capture the flag style gameplay and move more to a king of the hill style game. We believe that this will greatly encourage player interaction and will make the car pickups much more important. Additionally we wanted to cleanup our game a bit and make it cleaner and more interesting. From this we determined where car pickups should be placed, along with altering our island to add some unique jumps and interactions that would not have occurred prior. The team is really happy with the changes from this week and can't wait to have others play the beta!
What to look forward to:
In the upcoming weeks the team looks forward to juicing the game up. We have been working with a composer and voice actor on creating a soundtrack and other audio for the game. Additionally we will focus on small details making the game smoother and prettier than before. We look forward to the last two weeks of development and making the game the best it can be!
