Bully Beatdown
Update 1.04: Tutorial System
After watching more and more people play the game, I've gathered that the average person just can't figure out how to read instructions. The "How To Play" menu (which previously explained how to use the controls) has now been replaced with a tutorial system which allows the player to rebind the keys as well as walking the player through how to use the Special Key combinations to achieve Belly Bumps, Farts, Stomps and Bowls. The tutorial takes just a couple of minutes to complete, but should familiarize the player with these essential tid bits of knowledge before starting the game.
I've also configured the game to recognize whether the player has finished the tutorial yet, and force the player to complete the tutorial before continuing on to play the game.
Level Progress Reset
Due to the fact that the tutorial is an actual scene that has enemies, contributes to your skills, and tracks a score, I had to reset the scene unlocking progress for any player who has already started playing the game. Your skills should still be saved, but your progress through the levels will be reset the next time you play the game. That is because the level orders have changed.
Update 1.03: Sprees & Combo Bonuses
Added an announcer voice that broadcasts Sprees. You'll hear a voice say different things for every 10 combos performed.
Sprees
Fat Kid will only use a left and right punch until the combos begin to stack up. For every 10 combos, you'll unlock additional punch and kick animations which increase damage and knockback to enemies. There are now 8 punch and 8 kick animations. Bonuses are available at x10, x20, x30, x40, x50, x60, x70, x80, x90 and x100 combos intervals.
Update 1.02: Robot Laser & Bug Fixes
The boss in Scene 2 was updated to feature a ranged laser gun weapon that fires laser beams while pursuing the player. This special laser gun attack is in addition to his regular close range melee attack.
While making changes to the Robot's missile attacks, the Drones from Scene 6 have also been updated to allow them to shoot while pursuing.
Enemy Damage Bug
While play testing the Robot on Nightmare, I noticed a glitch where enemies were doing 3x more damage than they should have been doing. I eventually found the bug and fixed it. Now enemies seem to do the correct amount of damage for harder difficulty settings.
Update 1.01: Language & Charge
Added Cutscenes Language Translations for English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish and Russian. The User Interface is currently still only available in English. I intend to add User Interface Language Translations once I finish up the Tutorial System.
I intend to support more languages in upcoming updates too. Future Languages should include; German, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Polish.
Charging Enemies
A special "Charge" ability has been added to Grunt, Cheericorn, Shredder and Quarterback (AKA Reggie). This new ability allows these enemies to rush towards the player while smashing through breakable objects that get in their way.
As a result of adding this feature to the Quarterback, I have decided to change his Punch resistance to "Half" instead of "Immune". There are also a few less instances of the Quarterback to help balance the game.
Soon in Russian, Spanish, Portuguese/Brazilian, Turkish and Polish
So far we got Russian, Spanish, Portuguese/Brazilian, Turkish and Polish.
Soon we should additional languages.
Alpha Update: Key Binding
Today's update features a new keyboard binding menu. Use the Escape Key to access the regular in-game menu. From there you can find "Controls". Now you can set your basic game controls for the keyboard. Please note, I haven't gotten around to configuring for the XBOX controller just yet, so you'll have to deal with the default settings for now. But don't panic! This will come eventually.
Unity Loader Screen Blues
While adding the new Keyboard Binding Menu, I have removed the Unity Loader Screen that appears when you initially start the game. This Unity Loader had it's own method for rebinding keys, which no longer function due to the recent changes. There's also very little practical use for the Unity Loader Screen, beyond choosing Windowed Mode or selecting from a short list of resolutions, so I just got rid of it entirely. I may include options to change resolution and Windowed Mode from a menu within the game before the game goes full release (we'll see)
Alpha Update: Optimizations
I had previously optimized some of the enemies by down-scaling their animation sprite sheets. I was able to reduce the installation size by 1.2 GB. However, after play testing the game a few times, I started to realize that some of the game's graphics looked kind of bad. After improving the graphics a bit, the overall change increased the installation space by only 100 MB. This isn't bad, but there's still more optimization to come. (We're still down 1.1 GB from the original file size)
Gameplay Tweaks
I have continued tweaking the game play by adjusting various enemy stats (such as health and damage for example). I have moved some enemies around and added a few enemies here and there.
Alpha Update: Boss Love
Player can now be knocked back by enemies. Each enemy has been configured to deliver a knockback amount suitable for their size and weight. This update was originally only going to affect bosses (since they are bigger than ordinary characters) but I decided to apply this knockback to all characters, and just give the bigger bosses a much more powerful knockback than the smaller foes.
Spider Tank
The Spider Tank's movement has been completely changed from the original. Instead of following the player around and often ending up in undesirable places (such as halfway through a building) the big tank now wanders around on it's own node-based path while it's minion Drones continue attacking. This makes it a little more challenging to keep up with the tank while it continuously relocates, all while fending off annoying drones.
While working on the Spider Tank, I also fixed some visual bugs with the shadows not lining up with the feet on the ground as it walked around.
Drone Missiles
The missiles shot by Drones now actually fire towards the player. I have intentionally scripted the Drone's aim to be less than perfect. This improved aim makes the Spider Tank a little more challenging to strike. Before this update, Drones often stood in place firing in a straight line and usually completely missing the player. Now, their accuracy is about 80%, regardless of where they happen to be idling.
Difficulty Settings
Changed the health and damage for all bosses. Now their health, damage, and other stats will be adjusted depending on what difficulty you are playing the game in. This feature was already implemented for regular enemies, but until now, the bosses were not being adjusted.
Bosses in Roster
Added all bosses, including Grunt, Robot, Cheericorn, Giant, Spider Tank and all unique boss characters to the Roster. Also removed all boss characters from the game making them truly unique as a boss character.
Alpha Update: Locked Levels & Leaderboards
Since the game will be publicly available very soon, I thought it would be a good idea to lock the levels. Now, as with most games, you must complete level 1 to unlock level 2 and so on.
Leaderboards
I setup the leaderboards today for posting your scores on Steam. If you notice any problems, please be sure to let me know. It seemed kind of buggy.
More to come!
Alpha Update: Optimizations
By resizing most of the character sprite sheets to 512 pixels (instead of 800) I was able to reduce the size of the build by 1.2 GB. However, the build is still very large, so I will continue optimizing while the game goes into Early Access.
What this means to players is that the game's file size is still over 3 GB. When the game starts, it stores some of that information in memory. When levels load, more memory is used. Due to the heavy burden of resources, the game will run poorly on computers that lack a good processor and adequate memory. I am working to resolve this, and today's update was a big help. The game is already performing better than it was yesterday and the scenes take far less time to load.