Green Mountain Game Festival is an event created by students are located with in Champlain college to show off independent game development in the Northeast many games will be on display with a handful of developers from outside of the Vermont area attending as well. This event goes down this Saturday which is why this last week as all about getting ourselves ready to present VXT at this event.
To do so we need to make our first draft level much better, after a few rounds of testing we had a list of changes to our major mechanics to make them much more user friendly and enjoyable. Some examples for thing that changed are as followed
Boost Mechanic - We changed the controls around so that the left trigger is now what activates the boost, we change it so it requires more collectibles to gain speed, and most importantly made it so you can aim the direction of the boost instead of just increasing your current velocity by a magnitude. You can aim the direction by now pointing your shield in the direction you are going.
Slip Stream - We fixed a lot of the preform bugs due to physic being applied to every spawned particle. We changed how the player moved from setting position to applying forces to our player to make much smoother movement. Finally we allow the player to keep the massive velocity they gain while going through the slipstream allowing them to be propelled out of the end of it reaching amazing speeds, making it so satisfying to use.
Moving Platforms- Moving platforms allow players to have more dynamic obstacles however getting the timing right so that the platform was where it needed to be when the player arrived wasn't working out. So to fix that problem as well as putting more emphasis into the use of our shield, we made it so the platforms lay dormant and carry a color then when a player touches the moving platform it will active starting the movement, this way the platform only moves if the player is there.
Besides tweaks to these mechanics in order to prepare for Green Mountain Games we needed to make sure our game could play as if inside a kiosk. We revamped our menu system allowing quick and easy additions of levels to make expansion easier. We fixed pausing and restarting of levels so that player quickly swapping out wont have a problems starting and new. And most importantly in the spirit of competition (which our game thrives on) we made out global online high scores dynamic per level name and this way anyone who plays our game on Saturday and preforms well will be immortalized forever on the online high scores of the VXT Green Mountain Games levels high scores at themidnightacos.com
This Friday we are jamming out to get the most we can get done before the event. Wish us luck as midterms are right around the corner.
Until next time!
-Ian
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