Meow Tunes 2.0 - Final

Below are our updates for our final presentation!  

Added a Tutorial!

• We now have a tutorial level that introduces the player to how the game works and shows them the different rhythm actions.
• As the player progresses, there are different signs that introduce them to the controls one by one.
• The tutorial is easy and laidback compared to other levels and uses a Hiphop track for the song.

Updates to Level 1:

• We have updated the song of our level and made the audio cues much more distinct: there is now a noticeable drum sound for the jump actions, and loud horn sounds for moving left and right.

Added Level 2: EDM Level

• Our next level is released! It is nightclub themed, and the song genre is EDM.
• This level is more fast paced than the previous ones and it becomes more challenging to stay on the beat (without falling off the platforms) and get perfect scores!

Added new rhythm action: Stomp

• Stomping is now one of our rhythm actions that the player has to do on the beat! 
• This action also has a sound that’s associated with it in the song and the player must stomp on the beat to get the highest score.

Added new rhythm action: Eating Fish Treats

• We have changed the way the player interacts with fish treats. Rather than having them be regular collectibles, we have also incorporated them as rhythmic actions.
• To pick up a fish treat, the player must click a button (West button on controller, Left Shift on Keyboard). There is also a sound that is played in the song when it’s time to pick up a fish treat.
• If the player picks it up, they will get a “Purr-fect” score, and it will add to their music score. However, since this feature makes our game more challenging, we have made it optional to pick up the fish treats, they only give you a bonus score but the game doesn’t punish you otherwise.

We made missing the beat (getting “Oops”) more unsatisfying and meaningful 

• Now when the player misses a beat, not only do they get the “Oops!” indicator, but they also lose points from their score. 
• It is more important to stay on the beat, because the player would keep losing score when they miss the beat, and they would die and lose a life when they reach a score of -1000.
• We have also added a camera shaking effect when the player misses the beat, as well as an unsatisfying “meow” sound, which also makes the entire experience of missing the beat all the more unsatisfying.

Replace blinking platforms with floating arrows:

• In recent builds, we had implemented blinking platforms that indicate with a color what action the player should perform next.
• We have removed this feature and instead placed arrows that point in the direction that the player should move (left/right, up for jump, and down for stomp).

Updates to our Music Score UI:

• We now have assets from our art team for the visual score indicators on each action (“Purrfect”, “Nice” and “Oops”).
• We also added the score change (for example +100 in green or -100 in red) below the text, so that the player is more aware of how their music score is being affected.

Add countdown after Pause or respawning:

• We have added a 5 second countdown when the player resumes the game from the pause screen, the music and the movement starts again after those 5 seconds.
• We have also added a 3 second delay when the player respawns at a checkpoint after falling off the platforms and dying.

Display button names in the Win/Lose screens & add option to play next level:

• The end screens now show the button icon based on the player’s input method (PS4, Xbox, Switch Controller or Keyboard). For example: “Press (X) to play the next level”
• On the win screens for the tutorial and level 1, we’ve added the option to go to the next level. On the win screen for level 2, there is the option to go back to the main menu.

Added new side movement animations.

Added short jingles at the end of each level.

• Our audio team has given us jingles that we play when the player reaches the end of the level, during the win animation.

Updated Controller Map in our Game settings:

• We have received new assets for the controller map so we have added them in our game.
• We also updated the controls to account for our new Fish Treat eating action.

Bug fixes & polishing:

• Disabled the character controls during the countdown as well as the death and win animations. This is to prevent players from moving during those animations or skipping the death animation by moving.

• Updated the level decoration bouncing so that only some of them bounce, not all of them.
• Added a loading screen in between loading levels or restarting.

Challenges/Obstacles

• A challenge for us this build was figuring out the best way to tackle our new fish treat rhythm action. With our current fish treat placement, it made the game a lot more challenging to have to collect them by clicking a button (and lose score if not). To overcome this, we made the fish treats completely optional, so that players who want more of a challenge (and more points!) can try to pick them up, and others can choose not to.
• Implementing a slight camera shake when the player misses a beat was also challenging, but once it was working, we felt that it made a big difference in the polish and feel of the game!

Feedback

• Many of our features this build were based on feedback we have received. 
• First, playtesters thought our game really needed an easy tutorial with a more obvious beat, so that they get the rhythm aspect of the game. We tried our best to do just that with our tutorial!
• For our level 1, we made the music cues much more distinct, since this has been an ongoing comment that we have been receiving from playtesters.
• Playtesters and guests during presentations have suggested that we add more rhythm actions. This is why we included stomping and eating fish treats as additional actions that the player does on the beat.
• Speaking of fish treats, some playtesters did not get the point of them in the gameplay, and that is also a motivator for our new eating fish treat feature, which aims to give the fish treats more purpose in our game. 
• Several playtesters thought that there was no real consequence to missing the beat, and it wasn’t unsatisfying enough. We tackled this with our new features (described above) that happen when the player gets an “Oops!”. We are hoping that with these changes, players are more motivated to stay on the beat.
• Next, playtesters and guests that were watching did not really resonate with our blinking platforms feature. They found them distracting and they thought it was hard to keep track of what each color means. We received some suggestions to use arrows instead, and so we did just that with our floating arrows!
• Lastly, our end screens used to say “Press Start to play again”. Many playtesters were unsure of which button that is referring to, since it was generic. For this reason, we have updated this prompt with the actual button names, depending on the input method they are using.