Hi fellow designers!

We're thrilled to provide an update on the development progress of our upcoming game Swampside, which involves the player taking control of a frog through a series of levels to shut down pollution valves while doing a satisfying spin kick to clean the environment. Our team has been busy experimenting with various narrative ideas and adjusting the flow of the levels to provide an engaging experience. Our team has been keeping up with Jira and its tasks, and we're happy to report that production is going well. 

One of the most crucial aspects of any game is the feel of the controls. We believe that the controls should be intuitive and responsive, providing players with a sense of agency and control over the game's mechanics. Our team has spent a lot of time fine-tuning the controls, ensuring that they are not only easy to use but also satisfying to master.

The central mechanic of cleaning and using the spin kick to do so has been the focus of our team's efforts when it comes to perfecting the game's feel. We want players to feel like they're making a real impact on the environment, and the controls need to reflect that.

An important decision was made to split our one level into three different parts, which are gated off to facilitate the core gameplay of cleaning one area to a certain amount before moving on. This allows players to fully engage with the central mechanic of cleaning and provides a sense of accomplishment when moving on to the next part. Our team has worked hard to ensure that the levels have the perfect balance of challenge and accessibility. The gating mechanism ensures that players don't get too overwhelmed with too much area to clean at once, while also providing a sense of progression as players unlock the next part of the level.

Our team has also been experimenting with how to convey the story to the players. We're currently exploring the possibility of using forced cinematics or simpler dialogue boxes to better communicate the narrative. This will help the player to better understand the motivation behind the game and why it's so important to shut down the pollution valves.

Based on testing and user feedback, we're happy to report that the central mechanic of cleaning has proven to be satisfying and engaging.