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[trapstrandstudios]

After a long week of work at Trapstrand Studios, we have many exciting changes on the way for Coconaut!

After listening to some feedback, we revised our level design. A common complaint was in the lack of decision making required to complete the levels. To allow more choices and promote exploration we decided to shift away from smaller levels in favor of larger, more complex levels.

To go with the new level design, we added a new health system for the player and enemies, allowing crabs and bats to damage players, and the player can place traps to damage enemies. Hopefully this will lead to more interesting decisions and level design.

Look out for the new rope system too! The ropes can now only be placed from atop a point, promoting the player to explore different ways to scale obstacles.

Another complaint was in the lack of features within the crafting and inventory system; crafting was instantaneous and felt unrewarding, and you could only have one of each item. The crafting system has been overhauled to include effects and a timer to craft an item, and the inventory now allows the player to hold multiple of every item. Hopefully this will promote some more interesting levels in the near future.

For our next update, we plan to improve upon the item system allowing more crafting and new uses of items like a pick axe to climb stone walls. We are also eager to announce that the sound design and music is nearly finished; be ready to rock out to some tropical tunes!

Thanks for your support and stay tuned for more updates!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TlOGPAbGkpwIgCtXug_a-LPfysd2htJs?usp=sharing

[jbarrios]

Hey trapstrandstudios,

I couldn't get very far.  I got to the section of the tutorial where you set up a rope and climb down.  I pressed the LMB, that placed the rope.  Then I held 'S' to climb down.  Coco made it to the bottom of the rope so I pressed 'W' to move forward.  Then the tutorial resets.

[trapstrandstudios]

At Trapstrand Studios, we spent a long week making some exciting changes to Coconaut!
We are thrilled to announce the addition of a new level with some interesting new mechanics.
https://imgur.com/YZPqJ2t
The level features two brand new features: rock climbing and traps.
Rock faces spread throughout the map allow you to conquer the mountainous terrain and find new, fascinating passages to escape the island! Be sure to create a pickaxe to scale them by combining a rock and a stone.

The traps are one of our favorite features; you can place a trap to escape crabs and bats following you, allowing you to make a safe escape. Simply combine a rock and rope, and feel free to place at any of the locations marked with an indicator.

Plus, we are happy to announce the addition of new art, sound effects, object placement effects, and animations! Feel free to fall, run into an enemy, or place a structure, and hear some new sound effects. Likewise, check out our walking and rope climbing animations, or place a bridge or rope, and let us know what you think. We also finally updated our item icons to match the design of our models.
As we approach the end of the beta stage next week, we are hoping to finish sound design and add our final level with a feature to throw stones! As always, we appreciate your input and support #BestCommunityEver

[trapstrandstudios]

We are happy to announce the release of Coconaut!
Below is a list of changes we have made in the previous week.
  -Jumping logic has been improved and is now more consistent
  -Added a path in island 1 to prevent users from reaching a dead end
  -Transitions have been improved and reworked
  -A final scene has been added
  -Added an effect to the camera at the start of each level to fix guidance feedback
  -Added particle effects to indicate interactable and important points of interest
  -Refined island 2

There were two things we aimed to tackle this week, immersion and gameplay. In terms of gameplay, we implemented some tweaks to player controls and placed indicators on the level to prevent the players from being lost. We also added cutscenes at the beginning of each stage to show the players the goal, and also swapped out some irremovable bridges with a different model to prevent players from being confused or lost. On the other hand, we reworked the transition scene and added an ending cutscene to provide more lore to the story with the intention of making the game more immersive. Finally, We also added in some new content that were in the works during beta, and we hope that you find these additions entertaining.

Download link: https://trapstrand.itch.io/coconaut