Hey Folks,
Been on holiday the last week so apologies for the lack of updates!
Feeling a lot better for having some rest, although getting back into the project has taken a couple of days! I've started off with some visual tasks to ease myself back into it, for example, designing a bunch of costumes for the in game shop and remastering the old ones/hacking out the unnecessary ones. A good rule of thumb I applied whilst in the pool was if I couldn't remember the suit, it wasn't iconic enough to be on the roster.
Some of these will be saved for a later update, as the process of implementing each takes a bunch of time to do (And there's still so much left to do as time runs out!)
Here's the backlog of things that I have to do from here on out:
Final tutorial implementation: I spent a bunch of time on holiday designing how I want the tutorial to work and building the logic loops based on how players do. For example, what happens if the player dies mid objective, do you restart the tutorial or just the section they've reached?
Here's a rough explanation of what I've decided:
0: Tap to jump (Bottom of the third image) - Show a finger pressing on the screen along with a text prompt telling the player to jump
1: Flop to the Top - Tell them to climb upwards (And that there is a top)
2: Collect Coins - If the player survives long enough, a coin will automatically fall onto the screen. When this happens, the game will temporarily slow down, a UI element will pop up with the word "COLLECT" and a giant arrow that will point at the coin in question. Collecting 3 coins will stop the notification being displayed on the next playthrough.
3: Avoid fish - Shortly after the first coin drops, a salmon will fall from the top, slowing the game down again and popping up the word "AVOID" with an arrow. Dodging two fish will stop the message displaying the following playthrough.
4: Green lines pop up - When the first green line approaches, a screen will pop in explaining that tapping on the green line will do something.
5: In the second frame of the animation, the player will be seen to be launched upwards with the accompanying visual positives (Money, arrows pointing upwards and possibly a green tick)
6: After that short explanation, the first green line will appear. Accompanying this will be an arrow pointing to it and the caption "BONUS". This caption may change to something more appropriate in time.
7: Red Lines pop up - After a decent gap in gameplay (at least the first level completed), the red lines will be introduced with a similar tutorial to its green line counterpart.
8: The second part of the animation will show what happens if the player taps when passing through the red line: The escalator accelerating, less of a leap upwards and loss arrows dropping from the top.
9: Red line appears on the screen after the tab is closed. Arrow and description "AVOID" appears.
Power up tutorial:1: Collect Power Up - Like with coins previously, a power up will be dropped into the level, the game will slow down and display that the player should grab it.
2: Use Power Up - Upon collecting the power up, a screen will be revealed indicating the player needs to swipe to activate the power.
3: Power Up Active - The second frame of the animation shows the power up becoming active (Grow) and the icon for the power up changing.
The reason this one is separate is the indecision of where to put it in the game and whether it needs a separate tutorial screen to display it. Most likely, this will fit in snugly between the green and red line introduction. I may do some experiments to see if an on screen indicator of what to do is enough for this one. (E.G. Showing a finger on screen swiping to indicate what you need to do).
Whilst this is a task that needs implementing
(And have started laying the groundwork for in a separate build), I'll be focusing on something less gargantuan today. As I mentioned before, I'm easing myself back into the project with more achievable tasks (As when I came back from holiday, I dived straight back into the tutorial logic and obliterated my head). Instead, here's what I'll be focusing on instead:
1. A line that shows your last point reached - A lot of similar games have this marker, be that a tombstone or skull of your previous progress. Possibly having it as a line that can actually boost you up as well might be a nice touch.
2. Polish the top of the escalator - Upon showing it to family, a consensus was reached that the top needed a little more polish, for example, making the little exit grill you get at the top of escalators. I'm also tempted to add in some confetti or visual reward for getting promoted.
3. Drop off for certain objects spawning on the screen when the top of the escalator is reached - Currently, the profit and loss lines look quite bizarre when the player finishes the level, spawning beneath the position of the player despite being out of reach. There's also fish, coins and power ups continuing to spawn despite reaching the top. This can be hilarious but could be exploited (People hanging around at the top and farming coins) or frustrating (Fish spawning on top of you and launching you back as you go to the exit). Putting a limit on the spawn point height for these objects will probably do the job.
4. Enemy Salmon max height - With all objects in the game, if they fall beneath a certain height relative to the player, they die. For example, the coins fall off the bottom of the screen and die. The enemy salmon also have this function built in but don't have an upper limit to when they are removed from the game. Whilst this isn't a problem in earlier levels, in later ones where they become more proficient in jumping they are able to easily scale the escalator (Leading to a glut of fish alive off screen). I'll be logging how many fish are in-game at a time (And who aren't interacting with the player) then finding ways to either kill them off upon reaching a certain height or temporarily disabling them so they remain in view.
5. Better visual indicators on the store - Whilst I did add the various displayed buttons (BUY/WEAR/WORN), there needs to be better UI feedback. For example, having the game ask you if you want to buy the suit you've currently got selected before returning to the game. Another is having an indicator that you can actually buy a suit! Currently, there's no sound or visual indication other than nothing happening to indicate something is unaffordable. I'll likely add a message to the screen, an appropriate audio cue, alter the opacity of suits that can be purchased. I also want to add a notification that a certain suit is available, to drive player traffic towards the store. That would likely be adding an exclamation mark and more flashing to the icon on the game over screen.
6. Structure the menu functionality after the campaign has been completed - In the current game, winning returns you to the main screen, then upon playing again sends you straight to the boss battle. I will be adding in an endless mode for completing the game and in turn the ability to switch modes on the main menu.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ INTERMISSION $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Here's some experimentation I've been doing with splash banner designs.
Still early on but liking the rough concept so far (And contrasts really cleanly against the pink of the player's design).
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ INTERMISSION OVER $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ 7. Add pause menu to the end game sequence - Originally I didn't want to include it, but upon realising how much of a pain in the backside getting footage of the boss sequence was, being able to access it would be a plus. Shouldn't take too long to do.
8. To add some more variety to the levels - I'm currently mulling over changing the suit designs of the other fish between levels. This would tease the shop through a suit being unlocked with each promotion. The only thing that I'm conflicted on is whether doing this makes the player stand out less.
9. Delay on settings toggle - A recurring issue that I'll be dealing with is a delay on the settings tab popping in on game over. I've seen several players press on the settings bar accidentally when they lose (return to menu/buy ad free/see other games). This should be easily fixed with a subtle delay of a second on their activation. This might also apply to the accompanying buttons for the play button (Suit Yourself and Stats).
10. Update bear graphics - After an article from Touch Arcade pointed out the end boss looked like an aardvark (and some testers saying it doesn't look enough like a bear), I'm going to do some refinements to its design. I'm wanting to avoid giving it teeth to not make it scary, but it might be necessary to make it more bear-ish.
11. Red arrows cause lag - Upon jumping on loss lines, the volume of red arrows falling from the ceiling causes the game to glitch on some lower end devices (and isn't particularly clear to what you're looking at anyway). I'll be refining their design and trying to space them out a little more.
12. More indicators of progress - Little notices that let you know how far you're off reaching the top or maxing out a level on coins would help keep players engaged. I'll be dabbling with some ideas for this.
There's obviously a bunch of other things overarching that I've got to do, but this will do for now! Keep an eye on development over the next few days for more updates!
Thanks for reading through this marathon post, writing these really helps me get a better sense of grounding on the project, as well as assembling lists that I can work through (And can tangibly see things getting ticked off).
Community
