Mobile migration and major changes

Overall

Major step towards game release was accomplished. The whole project was ported on mobile platform, everything regarding controls was redone to fully use user touch input on mobiles, level layout in every level was changed to be better fit the platform, some levels were scrapped due to not really working as expected on target platform. Few new levels were added. Many existing mechanic were changed or improved. Here comes the description of major things that were added or changed.

Game changed player perspective

Game is now controlled from top-down view instead of first person as was previously. Game now uses mobile gestures as dragging, pinching, spreading, rotating and more...

Perspective switching

Game defaultly runs in side top-down view, but can be also turned to semi-ortgographic angle (still preserving 3D aspect)  where it is much easier to align directions

Level mechanic was redone

Levels now work with "burn seconds" units. Player chooses what time he he is aiming at to finish the level and then he spawns the object. His goal is to ignite the spawned object and get it to the generator before it runs out of burn seconds. The faster the player is, the better the score he gets. Now after every finished level player also gets score how successful he was. 

Player now enters to each level from main menu instead of free space. By removing a movement of the player in 0G and moving controls to top down view a lot of annoying moments of fighting gravity while trying to enter into level is gone.

New tutorial system

Instead of old tutorial signs, tutorial system was completely reworked and now contains always available panels with videos showcasing the explained topic, so player can always refresh the behaviour of the item that he potentially forgot how to use.

Speed field

Speed field was added. Player can choose to slow down or speed up items that hits the new speed area. Speed field is also movable, so player can grab it and move it anywhere on the map.

Time rewind mechanic

Player now has ability to rewind time up to 12 seconds to the past. He can also freely move on the time axis to choose best moment to return to. This mechanic is especially useful if player messes up, so he does not need to restart the whole level and can eliminate his mistakes and try for the best possible and fastest level completion.

Level boundaries

Due to change of player perspective, roof would block the player view. But objects still needed to be somehow contained in level and could not just fly away if player managed to send them out of the player area. New boundary system was added that will become visible only if any object touches the predefined boundaries.

Haptic Feedback

Game maintains the audio clues with newly added vibrations. Vibrations are nice addition to audio queues to let the player know that the action he was trying to do in the game was really registered.

Other new features

Features that were not significant enough to earn separate chapter

• Spawner now does not despawn objects, instead objects have ability to self-destruct
• Spawner now also have ability to spawn infinite amount of objects
• Toxic water was replaced with normal water that can extinguish firing objects when falling into the water
• Ability to move magnets on specified grid - previously not movable
• Cables and panels are now bigger than before mainly due to intensity of player interaction
• Ability to send feedback or bug reports from the game (with redirecting to email client)
• Game now features the save system so any progress that is being made is now persistent
• Ability to also delete local save file from the game and reset the progress
• Many more small features that I have forgot to note... :)

General game fixes

This section contains fixes that were present from older version of the game and does not include fixes with newly added mechanic

• Magnet side behaviour where object gets attached was changed and minor issues were fixed
• When rotating magnet, cable previously rotated, this is now fixed
• Fixed ability to connect two cables into the same panel
• Fixed collider issues with gravity wheel

Future plans

• Environment variables are planned. Where player will have to be careful of some items that can crush the used objects, etc...
• Electric splitter for panel
• Online leaderboard with stats (now there is only static text placeholder)
• Settings section
• Audio improvements
• Ability to better control camera vertical tilt 
• Unlocking fps to 60 after more optimizing
• Ability to have multiple generators in level
• 30+ levels

Future will be also about optimizing stuff, so it runs really well even on oldest mobile phones. Game will mainly grow in terms of levels (about 30 or more are already planned). Plan is to release the game on Google Play store, estimated release date is Q3  2023.