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Further progression

We have decided to continue and finish the game over the next few months, to what we have originally planned. We have already made some new progress especially with game mechanics that already improves player experience. Not being confined to a deadline will give us the chance to really improve the quality and quantity of the game to hopefully be a full - arcade game experience.
There will be many radical changes to the game that will eventually fit the story we have created for the game.
fixed mechanics:
- new added dash move
- players now will not get stuck into the sides of platforms
Parts in development:
- New enemies: several additions to new plants in the first areas, including cluster bombs, spike shooting mushrooms, falling boulders.
- positional deaths:  enemies will have deaths in relation to the current position of the character. for example while jumping and being struck by a falling stalagmite, the stalagmite will only pierce a small portion through the character. While running on the ground the stalagmite will completely impale the character and pierce it into the ground.
- Shield: the shield will have to be a very limited attribute but could be a very interesting mechanic to play with. this would show a strong relationship between the character and the great tree that originally had a protective shield. But for the character, a much weaker and smaller shield.
- Charge rune: a heads up display for the character that will only contain a small rune stone to show the link between the shield and dash move, To show when these moves will be available.
- Bestiary: Information about each new species of corrupt plants you come across, these will be unlocked in the main menu to see the lore of the plant in its initial use, and possibly a picture of how it use to look before it mutated. Additionally we might add tips on how to pass the enemy, and also a death count to see how many times you have died from a particular enemy.
Parts being planned:
- Cinematic’s:
   cinematic’s for the initial game story, induction to further zones, introduction to fully  mutated plants ( bosses ), End game cinematic, possible sequel cut scene.
- next level zones in between crater & great tree
- Bosses - this area was a bit tricky to come up with, to keep the player engaged and challenged. We have come up with an idea to make the whole map composed of the boss, the environment will change depending which boss. but will provide a challenging map for a combination of plants that has mutated and combined to form this enormous mass that you must climb upon itself to progress.
- Charge moves - in addition to dash and shield, there is the possibility of coming across new moves the player can perform further into the game. as the enemies become much harder.
and more to come soon….

Level creation

Level creation is a very important job and me and Zac ended up both doing this. We already had ideas on the first level being an intro level with signs telling the person playing for the first time what to do and what the controls where. we first stared making levels very small and square but after testing it ourselves and getting user feed back we realized we needed to make the levels higher so that's what we started to do with having the idea in mind that we can put a fast pace short level in where we thing it would fit. 

 For our demo we did end up putting a fast pace short level but it ended up tuning out very successful. One bit of feedback we got was that the leaning curve is too steep which we will be putting into consideration.  

 Probably the most successful level. This was made by me and Zac. I made put all the platforms and mushrooms and then Zac put in more enemies, spikes and changes the positioning of some of the tiles. It was made so that the toxic gas was always on your tail and one big mistake could be fatal. This is the sort of difficulty we were thinking of having when the player is close to the end of the section.

Since we have decided to continue the game after the assignment in our own time I have started on making levels for the transition to the next section by adding in some grass covered rock tiles. Once I complete the level I will have people testing it to tell me the difficulty for that level

Death animations with sound

Considering that the death animations where one of our favorite parts to do I wanted to make the death animation sounds fit really well and make them believable to make them that much better. I think with these sounds it was the right type of sound at the right time and I tried to make it a very extreme sound to have it quite gruesome. These sounds were challenging but very rewarding in the end.  

Blade death

Spike death

Flame death

stalagmite death

Toxic death