-- What was focused on this week --

We often had players tell us that there was not enough player feedback; the players didn't always know what was going on and many things felt unsatisfactory. Now that the feature freeze happened, we can put our full focus on that feeling of being part of the game. Part of that is adding particle effects and more clear lighting to everything that needs it. 

-- Updates --

-- Feedback when hit --

When either player gets hit, their character flashes red and their controller rumbles. It's important to know when you're doing something wrong and a simple change in the health bar was not enough to feel that. Shortly flashing red helped, but you might miss it if you're not specifically looking at your character, so the rumble helps prevent those situations.

-- Shield always visible --

Many found it odd to just pop out a shield out of nowhere by pressing a button. The simplest way to clarity was to have Twi always hold it and pull it forward when holding the shield button. 

-- Camera events --

Sometimes actions like pulling a lever makes something further away change, meaning you didn't get to see it. We thought of two options to make players aware of what's going on off-screen: zooming out or moving the camera. Zooming out made it too hard to make out exactly what was going on, especially when the events were pretty far away from the players. Moving the camera offered a clean way to have a customizable way of showing events the way we want.

-- Falling platforms rumble --

The falling platforms only offered a visual way to see that they were being affected, but it was not enough. It was unclear when platforms were about to shatter, so standing on them was more of a gamble than intended. We could have gone the route of Mario donut blocks here, but changing the colour would make it feel less authentic. Instead, the controller gradually starts rumbling more while the platform becomes less stable. It didn't feel quite right just yet, as it was still hard to detect when it's about to break. Making the controller suddenly stop shaking just a bit before it's about to fall apart offered just that.

-- Things make sound when they happen --

Not much to explain here, there was no sound before and now there is. Auditory cues help players know what's going on and what to look out for.

-- More checkpoints --

The game was too unforgiving in certain areas, making players go back one or two segments before their furthest point reached. Simple solution: add more frequent checkpoints.

-- Art --

-- Dust, Fire and More --

Finally arriving in the polishing phase, we could focus on improving the visuals of our game. The lever is now a fire bowl that Ki can ignite to move elevators or open doors. Furthermore we added different types of dust to enhance the feeling of being in an old temple; not only the temple but also the characters got some nice, shiny and sparkling accessories. The ranged enemy now shoots fireballs instead of grey cubes and the player characters have a healing effect in addition to the change in color.

-- Refining assets --

We also started to polish assets like the elevator and the button. The Elevator now is a wooded construct that will be pulled upwards with ropes. The moving platform is a bit more advanced with its magic driven wheels and a rail system to move on.
The lever was replaced by a nice fire bowl (image above) and the pressure plate got a sweet redesign based on a Mayan calendar. We also add magic glow to some of the interactive props.

-- Lights --

One of the most important parts, if not the most important is having a decent lighting in the scene. Last week we had some trouble because of the settings we used. This week everything looks way better and we get a decent framerate.