A little grind here, some refactor there, something new everywhere! A little late update, but a huge one for sure.
While games are awesome to play, see and even to design, there are a lot of gears turning to make it all work. One extra gear added and the whole machine slows down or even comes to a halt. It is the way development is and sometimes you have to grind your way to make it all work (again).
Luckily for us, our machine runs smooth and it is not the most complex system out there. Not to say things aren't breaking or need a rework, quite the opposite: fun is only there if you can play it. And sometimes we aren't making fun things, so we changing gears and make it fun.
So, this is some of the fun we've added:
Power ups
We have revamped the drop chance for power ups. Now power ups are spawned based on the level and world so we can more gradually introduce them. The reason is that some of the puzzles can only be when certain power ups are or aren't available. But do not worry: you can still have your fire on the triple sized ball.
We have added a transparent ball upgrade (or downgrade?) not completely invisible but harder to see.
We added a slow-, and fast ball power up. Who doesn't like more stress, huh?
We improved the visuals and flow for the slowdown time (interp instead of instant), sticky effect is now correctly shown on different shapes and shields (Unreal Devs read more about that here), spinning ball effect improved (our first Streamer - Theinkedavengervod had no idea what was happening), shooting have had a major visual improvement (thanks to the same Streamer).
Bricks and mechanics
While power ups are the more fun part of the game, they are useless without some challenges. We have added a few things too!
We have added movable objects. We hope this will give players an extra dimension when playing levels.
We added black holes (and inverse black holes). They may sound extreme for a brick breaker but we think they add enough variation to still be fun!
We added ice bricks, they can slide around and interact with objects.
We also added splitting bricks, like the classic D&D oozes! I mean. All games have some D&D in them. Right?
Gates and paddle teleport got a visual upgrade.
Other
We are reworking the flow of starting a level, getting to settings and exiting the game. We are still fan of not adding a UI, but we absolutely wouldn't like the give players unnecessary frustration or confusing. We need to learn, improve and fix what is needed.
Therefore when escaping in menu you will be lead directly in a settings menu with a dedicated exit. Escaping in game will still give the classic pause with an exit to menu option. We'll see.
We improved ball physics.
We revamped the drop chances.
We have still a lot to do.
So, until next time!