Hey Folks!
Here’s a big ol’ update of stuff I’ve been up to with SHUMP!
First thing: SHUMP! This is the new name of the game. I had issues with getting a hold of the name, Baboom on the app store, would've meant having all sorts of weird alternative names such as BABOOOM or BABOOM! (Only available for UK). The name itself was the core inspiration of the game, as drawing the creature (A baboon with a gun jutting out of it's head) combined with my critiques of a vertical platformer, but it's pretty redundant now that I have a variety of characters/8 months has passed since coming up with the intial concept. Not considering a review of the original name would be ridiculous. Shump itself came off the back of a variety of polling and experimentation with different titles. I opted for SHUMP for it's single sylable nature, easy to pronounce, play on words on the word shmup but also combo of the words jUMP and SHoot.
Here's the list of other stuff that I've implemented!
+ Sound: I've spent the last few days integrating audio into SHUMP and can't imagine playing the game without it! It's kind of surreal how long I left it to get this element of the project done, but I've got some tasty noises in the project. There's still a decent chunk yet to integrate (And a whole other level of designating sounds to certain channels/setting levels of audio), but I'm at least making progress on this area.
+ Music: This area isn't absolutely confirmed yet, but I've found a musician to work with on the project and they've produced an amazing sounding demo track that when integrated with the new audio puts a big stupid grin on my face. Has a Battleblock Theatre vibe to the soundtrack. My intention for the project is a peaceful soundtrack for the main menu and an intense gameplay soundtrack for the main level. Unlike Corporate Salmon which had 6-8 different tracks, this will probably only need 2.
+ Final boss integrated! After a bunch of experimentation, I've created the final boss for SHUMP. It's a larger version of the shop boss but with rotating cannons and a beam shot. I'm very excited to see how this feels with audio integrated!
+ Projectile visual overhaul: Not only have I merged the majority of the projectiles under one actor type (E.g. Rather than having bird projectile and explodey projectile, the movement behaviour of the actors are handled inside of the enemies themselves (E.g. Make the last actor created move in this direction and be this colour)), but I've revised how they look. After seeing other bullet hell games having white highlights to their projectiles, I was considering something similar but it looked pretty out of place. Instead, I've made an initial highlight that disappears after being spawned in. As a side effect of the projectiles spinning rapidly to hide their jagged sides, it creates this delicious whirling effect, which looks particularly amazing on the new boss' beam attack.
+ Title integration: I've added a title that appears once you start the game, but doesn't show up again unless you go back to the main menu and then play again. I'll with any luck be accompanying this with a bit-crunched voicing of the title, "SHUMP!"
+ Revising of the level titles: I've bought the design of these in line with the title text, for one reason that they've not been changed since super early on in the project and adds a layer of polish to the design.
+ Built flow mechanics: I've built the functionality for collecting data to do flow mechanics, BUT haven't found a way to apply them yet. What I mean by this is I collect the score of the last 3 runs, add together, divide by 3 then use that number to alter variables in the project. I intially thought about adding this variable to the starting enemy tally (So if you're kickass you get a burst of enemies to start of with) but in reality it just meant you got a deluge of enemies then back to sensible amounts. Will definitely need some nuanced and tinkering with to get right.
+ High score acknowledgement: When you beat your current high score, you'll get some tasty confetti descending from the ceiling.
+ Overhauled player unlock prices: A simple adjustment that still could need some refinement, I've upped the prices of the player characters since I was able to unlock all of them far too quick before! This will definitely need some tweaking as one of my gripes is having to over-grind for character unlocks.
+ Lives Overhaul: From the feedback I recieved, a lot of people reported feeling cheated by the game and that the lives system was unfair/needed a way to replenish lives. At the time of this feedback, the earliest characters in the game had 2 lives each. I've realised that this is a super terrible way to do lives, because if you die quickly, you're already half dead and therefore it isn't worth continuing a run, whilst if you've lost only 1/3 lives, there's enough of an incentive to keep going. So, I've made it that the default player has 3 lives. I acknowledge this may reduce my short term revenue from the game, but hope that it might garner long term retention on the project through dedicated players (And avoid losing the less hardcore players at the offset).
+ New Powerup UI Integration: It still needs work, but I've got the new powerup UI design added. the previous didn't match with the rest of the game. I've also made a dynamic UI function that fades the buttons/powerup display based on the Y location of the player, so if they're blocked by it it fades.
+ Overhaul of UI elements: The ad reward function was confusing people, so I've made the various buttons more consistent in design to guide the player. I've also revised the powerup graphics as they looked tacky with their outline, replacing them instead with icons with a nice 3D pop. I've also where I can tried to make the text of the UI more consistent with the logo and level title texts, such as the game over text or GET box in the character select.
+ Coin Candy: Added a tasty little diamond animation for collected coins to give the game an extra layer of polish!
Here's what I have left to do:
- Finalise agreement with musician and integrate soundtrack
+ Figure out what I'm doing with Bull player and in general do a review of all the various character unlocks
- Refine the audio levels and finish integration
- Balance the purchases on the main menu for character unlocks
- Integrate reward ad on character purchases (so you can watch an ad to get some coin!)
- Create end of game screen/ending cinematic
- Create leaderboard infrastructure
- Implement ads
- Revise display of the ad skip (Text is overflowing)
- Refine final section of the game (Robot section)
- Cross promotional functions
- Potentially automate levelling up system (similar to the Shump combo meter)
- Unique bullet death animations for bosses?
- Throw more powerups in on the first few plays
- Integrate alternative way of keeping your powerups (instead of watching an ad, use your in game currency).
- Set height limit to when robot enemies can fire specifically at the player (Some are firing off screen)
- Look at showing only the characters yet to be unlocked on the levelling up screen (So if you've unlocked Cleo, it goes straight to Tito on the levelling up screen).
- Fix misaligned level titles
- Alter shop spawn to reduce lag (E.g. not spawning in a bazillion actors)
- Fix slo-mo issues with bullet speeds messing up
- Bug where bullets stay alive on the screen after pausing (Kill bullets with y speed of 0)
I'll try and bring the weekly updates back on track, so stay tuned for more!
Community
