March 2013

Difficult Facelifts

It’s been a while since my last post, but I already posted once without an upload, and didn’t want to do it twice in a row. This last upload has added a difficulty level, which has been sorely lacking, and a couple minor graphical improvements.

Graphics:
– Samurai MiniBoss has a brown robe to match the dialogue picture (and also making him look a little less like Samurai Jack)
– New title screen
– New pause menu
– New View Controls screen (which is now also the Adjust Difficulty screen)
– New Bird animations
– The sake bottle at the top of the screen now bounces a little when you pick one up, and when you drink one
– The water is a little more transparent, to make it easier to see that one rock ledge (you know the one I mean)

Non-Difficulty based changes:
– The mouse now cannot leave the window unless the game is paused. This keeps you from accidentally clicking outside the window when attacking, if you’re not paying attention to where the cursor is when you have a melee weapon
– Fixed a bug wherein if you were standing RIGHT ON TOP of an enemy and using the katana, the attack wouldn’t register
– Made it a smidge easier to jump from some things on to other things
– Bird corpses don’t stick around quite as long now
– Enemies now revert back to walking back and forth when you break line-of-sight
– Enemies also now deal their damage halfway through the attack animation, which looks a little more realistic

Things that changing the difficulty level affects:
– Enemy speed
– Enemy aggro range
– Enemy firing rate
– Enemy damage dealt
– Player damage dealt
– Player invulnerability time after a hit
– Amount of health restored when drinking
– Whether or not checkpoints restore health
– Mini-boss damage
– Mini-boss rolling speed
– Boss damage dealt
– Boss speed-up rate
– # of hits to burn Boss’s armor
– Whether there’s a 2nd guard during Boss fight

The Difficulty Level starts at Normal on a new game, but is saved at checkpoints. I definitely need more testing and feedback to let me know if whatever difficulty level is too hard or too easy, especially at the Boss fight.
I’ve finally finished all the tweaks I’ve been putting off for the Japan level. I need to turn the isometric engine into the first waking level, link the two, and then move on to the second dream level. I’m still trying to decide how much will go online- I don’t want to give the whole game away during development!