Devlog 2

Hi! Welcome to the Devlog 2.

After awesome Christmas and New Year time, I finally got some more time to finish up this version (v0.1.4).

New stuff list:

1. New level: Green
2. New ability: Launch and bounce
3. New game mechanic: A waves of traps room
4. Prettier labels for levels, made as tooltips rather than always being on screen
5. Abilities are auto given on level entry, it's no longer needed to get the ability pick up
6. The Main Hall (Starting, grey room) is changed so that the extra doors/portals are removed.
   1. Now, the purple, cyan and yellow doors can only be reached by previously acquiring the abilities from the starting levels which colours are a part of the target door's colour.
      1. So to reach e.g. purple door, you'll need to finish the red and blue levels.

New level! After a long month, there is finally a new level to play on. Here, the challenge is to navigate the traps using the new ability "Launch and bounce". As the name says, you launch yourself at the closest orb and on contact with that orb, you bounce upwards.

The new game mechanic is the part that took me longer to do than all other additions and changes of this patch combined. I wanted to make an easily readable, extensible, modifiable and reusable mechanic. I was reiterating, and recreating everything multiple times to ensure that I use the best practices and that the performance stays at the top. Also, there was a lot of playtesting, making sure that it is beatable, balanced, fair but still challenging and to ensure that it behaves the same on various systems and devices.

I won't talk too much about this in this devlog, as I want to avoid as much spoilers as possible. If there is enough interest, I'll dive deep and explain what and how is it made.

The main hall is now getting shape of what it is supposed to be, but I'm sure that in some of the future versions, it will be changed further so that the paths to the higher tier doors are different and possibly more challenging.

I've also made a YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SShone95
And Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/essence_spectrum/ 

So follow these if you're interested!

The time for the greatest challenge so far for me is coming close. The birth of my second child is expected at the beginning of the next month, so I might slow down the development in the following weeks so that we can all get used to the new change.

I hope the interest comes, stays and doesn't leave. If there are any questions about the game, feel free to write your comments, feedbacks and thoughts!

Until the next time! Best of wishes!