Hey everyone! 👋

We are back with our fourth devlog for Crypt Creature Catcher, and we’re so excited to finally share some gameplay with you!

Over the last two weeks, we have focused on expanding mechanics, improving combat feedback, and adding more life to the environment. Here's a breakdown of what’s new:

🛠️ What’s Been Added This Week?

🧱 Major Additions:

• Weight Puzzle: A puzzle that incorporates the new picking up and throwing mechanic we added. Pick up stones and throw them into a hungry gargoyle’s mouth who acts as a counterweight to lift a portcullis.

• Goblin Throwing: You can now pick up goblins / vases and throw them into pillars, statues, or each other. It can be used strategically in combat or puzzles.

• Destruction: We wanted much more interactivity in the game, especially with environmental objects. There wasn’t a lot other than breaking vases beforehand, so now we have added destructible objects to the environment. You can now use your sword or throw enemies and vases into things like pillars, vases and statues to break them. This adds an extra layer to the combat and is a huge plus for the fun factor of the game!

• Sword Charging Overhaul: In the last devlog we mentioned that we added the core functionality for a sword charging mechanic. We have now finished it off with visual polish, its own unique animations, and more.

• Jump: You can now jump around the environment! We added this to expand level design potential and simply because jumping around adds a lot of fun to the movement.

• Goblin Mage: A new basic enemy type. The goblin mage is a goblin that, with a wave of his wand, shoots small projectiles at the player. These projectiles can be hit midair to return to sender. 

🔧 Minor Additions:

• New Area + Decoration: A final area has been added at the end of the tutorial which features all new textures and decorations that’ll give you a glimpse into the outdoors area to come. 

• Sword Design Overhaul: With our previously discussed move to pre-rendered sprites, we’ve overhauled the look of the sword and turned it into a sprite. The new sword is more stylized and elegant. 

• Post Processing Updates: We are constantly tweaking the look of the game. Since the last update, we have been playing around with adding bloom and more saturation to make the lighting pop a bit more.

• Wall Sword Trap “finished”: The wall sword trap has been (more or less) completed, rigged and textured. Though it's still missing its helmet :( 

🔍 Dev Thoughts

• 👨‍💻 Cameron: I’m really excited to finally share some gameplay! While I enjoyed sharing screenshots last month, it feels great to now showcase the actual game — especially the parts I’ve personally worked on.

I’m thrilled with the increased interactivity in the world. Breakable environments add a whole new layer of fun and really bring the game to life. We moved away from relying solely on animations and started using physics and rigidbodies instead, which has made a huge difference.

• 🎨 Jamie: This sunday has been our deadline to get the tutorial in a complete enough state to show off in video form. It’s been a tough few days finishing off what was left on our checklists, but rewarding nevertheless. It’s really wonderful seeing all our hard work over the months come together and start to form what we imagined. I’m specifically excited about the new throwing / destructible environment mechanic. I find myself zoning out, throwing goblins into objects and watching the pieces fly everywhere over and over again. It adds a whole new dimension of fun into the combat that wasn’t there before.

That’s everything for this fortnight! We hope you enjoyed the gameplay footage. We will be doing devlog commentary for it very soon, as well as adding in more audio! As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts so far. If you’re interested, be sure to follow us here and on Instagram for more updates.

Many thanks, and stay tuned for more updates! 🙏

Watch the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29YTxanAVpw

- Evernight Studios

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