Devlog March

-- Overall Feedback Gathered In The Game Jam --

Suggestion/Critiques

1.  High demand to be able to edit buildable items during build 

2.  Player jump pad is hard to predict it's projected direction. 

3.  Add a build count on the buildable icons. 

4. Keep build screen constantly active.

5. The game doesn't do a good job in fleshing/conveying  that the player can pause and build during runtime.

6. UI confusing don't know what each button does. 

7. Not favoring the default controls or unable to use the controls

8. Add a level selection screen

Observations/Reflection

1. Levels difficulty spike too much at level 6 no way of player being able to solve + need to rebuild every time the player dies -> Frustration and a bad play experience 

2. Player is able to Build at runtime was not convey to player, the intended level to do it level 5 have a issue where the enemy collider is larger than the player so instead of playing the scene then building the blade to kill the enemy the player instead can just place the blade on top of the player and that defeat the lesson objective for that level

3. UI Buttons are confusing and take up unnecessary portion of the game screen

4. Confusing button controls -> bad friction in helping player achieve their goals -> Confuse by which button to press/Press wrong button

-- Post Jam Update Plan -- 

1.  Turn the build on runtime mechanics and change it to a "Power Up" skill for the fox,  so the player has to touch the "Power Up" object to be able to re-edit the buildable. 

Reasoning 

- Help keep the initial design intent of having  the player manage their resources to build a path to the goal, as being able to build and destroy then collect back the buildable + build on runtime may neglect the original design intent as player can just keep on abusing it to reach to the goal 

- Open up the possibility of a potential 2nd character to have a different skill set/ability when touching the "Power Up"

- Smoother gameplay experience, as player don't need to use their reaction timing to click on the perfect moment to pause the game and can just target to move to the "Power Up" shift their layout then reach to goal. So work as some sort of checkpoint also.

2. Adjustment on build & destroy for a smoother experience 

- Destroy to add back buildable count -> Can edit layout at any point of time

- Save & Load Grid -> Upon death keep the previous layout over runtime

- Destroy All Function -> Player's don't need to destroy one item at a time, could possible be annoying 

- Readjust Default Key Bindings

- Build UI to stay on screen unless player press play

- Show build current count on top of build UI

3. Level balancing 

- Levels will be balance based on the buildable type, buildable amount, total grid space & obstacles in the map with each different weight to come up with a difficulty level gauge for future level to follow

- Reduce possible grid space to a maximum of 60 grid -> Less noise/confusion + reduce unpredictably -> Easier to piece together the ideal placement for the level & easier to design player experience

4. Quality Of Life Features

- Add a landing page with play game, controls, audio settings, credits 

- Level selection screen to show completed level and star completion .

- Pause Menu with play, controls, audio setting and level selection popup.

- A level and star counter UI on the game scene and a pause button.

- Tips function that automatically detect the current placement and add a buildable item to the spot -> Player that are stuck to still be able to solve most of the puzzle

5. Making New Levels 

- Game Manager to take in a scriptable object of the level name, prefab and objective and spawn in on existing scene instead of building each individual level on separate scene to make the design process more smoother and easier to produce levels 

- Levels to spilt into chapter with each having a theme around it/main lesson objective, with the goal of making at least 20 levels 

- Introduce a handful more buildable and enemy variant to make gameplay feel more interesting and less repetitive 

- Potentially introduce 2nd character that have a more combat orientated skill when colliding with "Power Up"-> Change the objective to bringing 2 character to the goal.

-- Current Progress --

*May work on and off because of National Service (˶˃ᆺ˂˶)

The goal is in 2 weeks I will get the game to a much more playable state than before with less annoyance and a easier difficulty curve with more levels and basic UI implemented.

Post Jam 

- Brainstorm/Ideate Post Jam Plans

- Clean up/optimize the code for the game jam

- Remade my game manager to be able to spawn each individual level on the map on command and a level container scriptable object to contain all the level/balancing data. 

- Adjust the controls to feel less complicated and more straightforward 

- Remove UI Buttons

3.1.25

- Implement Save & Load Setup Feature

- Implement Destroy and Collect Feature

3.2.25

- Setup Level Design Excel Sheet for design mockup and balancing

3.3.25

- Setup Level Design Roadmap For 2 weeks scrum

- Rebalancing of existing level with need "Power Up" function

3.4.25 

- Design Mockup & Implementation for level 7 and 10

- Fix issue where player is unable to get back buildable object once scene reset/die

3.5.25

- Set up game balancing matrix and update on design mockup and data on level design excel sheet

- Setup basic UI to show levels and stars obtain on each level

3.6.25

- Hold Switch & Gate Mechanics implementation

- Start working on portal logic

3.7.25

- Chapter 3 Design Plan 

- Design Mockup & Implementation for level 11 and 13

3.8.25

- Design Mockup & Implementation for level 12

- Add control to remove all buildable 

3.9.25 

- Readjust current levels to reduce grid space

- Add simple feedback for "Power Up" state

- Documentation

3.10.25

- Start working on the UI Mockup of the pause/level selection screen

- Some minor adjustments to the levels to reduce grid space, and fix areas that are supposed to be unbuildable buildable. 

- Add a speed function that allow the play state and build state to move faster -> Provide an option to reduce unnecessary waiting time

- Design Mockup & Implementation for level 15

3.11.25

- Design Mockup & Implementation for level 14

- Readjust Level 15 to reduce the amount of input required to complete the level from 26 to 19

- Basic Pause & Level Selection Screen.

3.12.25

- Fix Issue where levels are not loading properly from level selection screen

- Add powerup animation

- Add build block to all levels

- Readjust Level 2-2, 3-1 & 3-3 layout 

- Further reduce grid space for chapter 3 levels

3.13.25

- Fix bug where pausing  from a playing state and playing again cause build state to activate instead of continuing play state.

3.14.25

- Fix Speed Up Mode player gravity speed up gain rate not consistent with speed up multiplier 

- Add vfx for collecting star, trophy getting hit 

 -Start working on home/landing page

3.15.25

- Add vfx for connecting with portal and colliding with jumppad

- Continue wok on home/landing page on settings and controls page

3.16.25

- Update level selection page outlook and show amount of stars collect

- Add more feedback for build and destroy and powerup 

- Adjust get hit feedback

3.17.25

- Simple save system to show max star count on level selection page

- Show current build count on level UI

- Adjustment on Levels to prevent unexpected collision with the edge of the ground/blocks

- Update gate/hold switch sprites

- Add breakable object VFX

3.18.25 

- Fix Level 1-5 3rd star not being able to be collect

- Fix sound setting referencing the wrong thing

- Adjust Portal VFX

- Add player trail effect that is activated when hitting wall & jumping

- Add some UI clicking SFX

3.19.25

- Fix jump pad not adding force in the correct direction

- Fix minor issue with build and destroy particle rotate with buildable item 

- Add portal SFX

- Slight adjustment to level layout after jump pad bug fixes

- Player now set their position to the jump pad on collision trigger with jump pad to reduce inconsistency in player jump movement -> certain levels to be incompletable at random times. 

3.20.25

- Final review of existing level and minor adjustments on levels to balance difficulty 

- Update documentation on the level design documents on updated level layout and difficulty 

3.21.25

- Fix issue with speedup only effective at the start of the level

- Fix issue with gate visual clashing with background layer

- Fix issue with speedup affecting player movement 

- Add edge detection on level 1-4, 1-5, 2-2.  To ensure player movement is consistent.

3.22.25 

- Fix issue with double/triple collision with portals 

- Fix issue with build visuals showing in home/landing page

- Fix issue with home/landing page screen not playing animation cause game timescale is set to 0

- Adjust collision cooldown for portals

- On entering level set build control visual active 

- Minor adjustments to level 3-5 

- Fix Issue with portals not saving over death

- Fix Issue with current buildable items from loading an additional time even with items already existing in scene

-- Final Thoughts --

Very happy that I manage to keep consistent and slowly and steady complete this mini project of mine. Took a little longer than I initially plan to work on but there was quite a handful of bugs that affects the gameplay experience that I needed to fix. Moving on I probably won't continue working on this project but if I do I have an idea of how I could expand the game for another 10-15 levels  with the 2nd character and bringing in more enemy variants. I may occasionally fix a few bugs here and there but my focus now would be to just to explore learning something different.