🌳🌳🌳 🤖⚡️🌳🌳🌳
We’re back with more updates! This past week BANJOS focused on the gameplay and user interface.
LED
The first thing we changed was the purpose of the LED; it acts as a visibility feature for the creator. The variant’s goal is to shortcircuit the LEDs to obscure the creator’s view, so they can sneak to the core. After the variant shortcircuits the LED, the creator has to send in clones to fix the LED.
Capacitor charging
The variants have a limit on soldering and need to recharge at the capacitor. This spaces out the gameplay more, and the variant must walk over to the capacitor to charge up rather than go directly from LED to LED. The map has been adjusted so that the capacitor is further away from the LED and resistors.
Hidden
We wanted to incorporate the forest into the gameplay better. Hence when the variant is in the forest, they disappear from the creator’s view. We adjusted the map to include more trees.
Animations
We implemented the attack and soldering animations. Now players can walk, attack, and solder. Meanwhile, our sound designer developed sound effects for attacking.
User Interface
We created a user interface so that the players know how to interact with the environment. First is the health bar and battery bar for the variant. Furthermore, we created an interface for soldering, so players know how long to solder the electrical components. In order to have the interface stand out from the map and environment, we adjusted the colors of the map to be more cool-toned, while the interactable items are bright yellow.
Finally, we implemented a health and battery system for the variants. When the variants get attacked, they lose more HP. When their HP reaches 0, they can’t move, and they have to wait for another variant to come over and solder them/heal them. Any action that requires a soldering iron uses up the battery. Hence, when the variant is soldering a connection, attacking, or healing, they expend some battery.
Next Steps
Our next steps are going to be playtesting amongst ourselves and with other people!