This monday the beta presentation was completed and the entirety of sunday was spent on setting up the game in a presentable state. Many issues had to be addressed, levels had to be playtested, bosses had to be implemented and bug fixed, sounds were missing and etc. We are currently in a state where the game functions as well it can and the focus is now on filling in the blanks.
However, some small changes has also been made. For one the enemies have been balanced and that also incorporated another look at the games levels. It’s connected to one criticism we received during the presentation, the level backgrounds were too stale and the duration of levels were too long. In order to respond to that criticism we decided to split up the current two levels into four. The only assets that has to be made are two complete backgrounds that are split up into four layers, all scrolling at different speeds to increase the sense of falling and depth. Since not much else graphics are left to complete or have the time to remake, the two tasks aren’t too much work, most of it is handled in Unity through already written code.
This then leads into how do we make our two levels into four? First of all, they are all much shorter, we are aiming between one- to one and half minutes long, compared to the previous two- to three minute long levels. Secondly we are splitting up the learning curve into more digestible chunks. Before, level one was the “tutorial level”, introducing all enemies one after the other and finally mixing them together a bit towards the end and ending on a weaker version of the final boss. Level two was then the real challenge, here we threw in larger amounts of enemies and coming up with new combinations that challenged the player in different ways. By dividing them into more sections we arrived at the following: level one introduces the movement, powerups and basic enemies before fighting a very easy version of the boss. Level two introduces the final two enemies of the game that challenge the player into using the tools they have previously been given, ending with a more dangerous boss. Level three is where the game begins to increase in difficulty, mixing enemies that keeps the player constantly on the move and ending with a stronger boss. If you haven’t caught onto the pattern yet, you may notice that he boss makes constant appearances, this is because we want to drive home the narrative that the nightmares are getting worse and soon they will reach their peak. Each boss has access to another one of the available weapons, more hitpoints and is slightly faster For the fourth and final level of the game, the game enters its most difficult stage, many strong enemies are present and really makes the player utilize everything they have learned in order to beat it. Finally, you meet the final boss, with every weapon at its disposal and a surprise “beam attack”.
All of this sounds like a lot of work, but thanks to our customizable code that has several states and the ability to change every possible variable, splitting the levels up is not a time consuming task. When the backgrounds are complete we can begin to finalize the game, bringing everything together and make the final minor alterations.