Beta

For this build, I tried to focus on improving the overall feel of the game. I received some feedback on the gravity in the game, which was one of the main things I was curious about from a game-feel perspective. I was told that in its current state, the game felt a bit floaty. To try to adjust for this, I increased the player's gravity scale to increase the amount of gravity being applied to them. I think I have it in a good spot, but I will need to playtest a bit more in order to really know. Adjusting the gravity is a tricky thing to do with this game, since it is very influential to the core mechanic. While I was adjusting it to find a good value, I set the gravity scale to be much higher than it should have been. This made it so that the player was essentially unable to complete any of the jumps that I had already laid out. With that in mind, I reduced the player's gravity scale to something that I think is a good middle ground between floaty and realistic

In addition to working on the game feel, I finally blocked out a level with a beginning and an end. The level that I ended up creating is simple but challenging, with the goal being to outrun rising water as you platform. If you touch the water, you have to restart the level. For this level, I also created a new hazard: Jellyfish platforms. To make these, I used the base code from the bobbing glass balls/mines to make them move up and down, but I also put a collision that kills the player on their tentacles, making them more of something to be aware of. As for the models for the jellyfish, I am very happy with how they turned out. They are incredibly simple, with the platform itself being a typical mesh, but the tentacles are simply planes that I applied Unreal's basic foliage wind to (much like the kelp in the background). I think that bit of motion adds a lot to making them feel more alive and interesting.

Another thing I did was reworking how the grenade launcher is coded to better fit the way the game is made. Previously, the grenade launcher was just an edited version of the gun Unreal's basic first person shooter template. This did not work for the way I wanted the game to work level-by-level, so I finally changed it. Now, due to the simplicity of the game, I have baked all of the grenade launcher's functionality into the player character themselves. I figured that since there isn't anything else the player will be doing, having them contain all the code necessary for the grenade launcher was fine. This method also allows me to switch the type of grenade the player fires on a level-by-level basis with the 'level controller' I made to initialize level-specific settings. I also finally animated the grenade launcher to fire and then reload. Previously, the grenade launcher was just a basic static mesh that would not move when you fired it. It would just print 'reloaded' when you were able to fire again, which was somewhat hard to notice when you were actually playing the game. To remedy this, I animated the grenade launcher to open and close using blender. The current animation will work for now, but I want to go back and redo it to make it more fluid and to have it include putting the grenade into the grenade launcher and ejecting the spent casing when you reload. I do not anticipate this being particularly difficult, but it will be time consuming. 

For the next build, I have several 'must add' items and a lot of 'would be nice' items. The list of things I need to add are footstep sound effects (which will be very easy, I've done it before in other games), build more levels (at least one), polish the levels that I currently have, and finishing the UI (I was struggling with the UI a bit, but I think I have an idea that will solve most of the problems I was facing). Additionally, I plan to add some minor animations to improve the feel of the game. these include adding some follow through to the camera and grenade launcher when the player lands. If I have time, I would really like to add music (I have the music that I want to add, I just need to loop it and credit it), improve the grenade launcher animation, add more obstacles/levels, and polish the menus that are currently in the game. They are not pretty right now, but they are functional. 

This is the rising water level in its current iteration. I need to make something for the outer wall, but I am having some trouble figuring out what that will be. My main idea currently is to style it after the interior of on old submarine with some portholes looking outwards. The ocean level theme absolutely is the more fleshed out of the two, and I feel that I will be able to make at least one more level with the obstacles I have available already made.

For the sweets level, I did not work on it as much as I would have liked to. I like the models I have for it, I just need to block out an actual level for this theme, which will not be too difficult hopefully. A very simple obstacle that I would like to try to make is a spinning roll cake that acts as a platform. I think that this would be cute and in theme for this level style, and it would be really easy to make!