Final Update!

Hello folks! After much tweaking, I am happy to say the new version of Vampire Rush is ready. Here's the biggest changes:

• Movement - players now have significantly more air control, making the traversal of the level easier.
• Garlic Bomb Update - the garlic bombs now have updated graphics to better communicate the behaviour of the hazards. 
• Hazard Reduction - hazards have now been reduced in some areas to reduce general difficulty. 
• Level Tweaks - platforms have been added and removed to increase the required number of jumps, introducing a higher chance of a player losing progress by falling to a platform below them and needing to redo their run. 
• The Void - dedicated players will find a new enhancement to the void!
• Timer Update - early on it was determined that the countdown timer was ticking down when the main menu was open, leading to a game over before the game began if a player did not start the game within the time limit. This has been remedied. 

There were some changes that I wanted to implement, but have set aside for the moment to be implemented in a possible later version. Gamepad input is possible while playing the level, but not in menus; this was determined to be low priority as my focus was on making a better keyboard and mouse experience for my first iteration.  I also considered adding a health bar or making the hazards toss the player around, but decided to keep it as one shot to win. This is a small game that is intended to encourage skill development with repeated runs, similar to games like Celeste. 

I learned a lot in the process of improving this prototype, particularly around character movement. I now understand why air control is so important, especially in 3D platformers, and how that further influences level design. Event ticks have become a beloved nemesis after learning so much about how they interact with different levels and objects...I now understand more about why some favour timers over event ticks in UE5. The garlic bombs turned into a fantastic learning opportunity; in the process of refining them, I learned about timelines, scaling, and particle effects. Overall, I'm satisfied with the changes I've been able to implement, and the things I have been able to learn.