This was another large update to the game but I think it’s finally ready to have more people play test it.

First off, the inventory/socketing system was feeling a bit too clunky so I pared it down a bit by making it so you simply carry ingredients to the forge and socket them there, all done with just the A button. No more weird duel joystick and multiple buttons needed. Also, there are now icons that give a visual cue as to what an ingredient does when it’s socketed.

Next, I implemented the beginnings of what might be the first official game mode I’m calling “Halloween Mode,” where you must interact with the houses in order to receive a randomized ingredient. Due to it’s Halloween nature the ingredients are now all various candies. Will Halloween mode stick? Maybe but I can’t make any promises. All choices made must go to making the best experience possible.

In internal testing I found that dropping your weapon on death resulted in what’s called a reinforcing relationship within the feedback loop of the game. This is game designer jargon for basically getting a free turn because you scored a point or losing a turn for not getting a point, to use a rough board game example. What was happening was those players who were unfortunate enough to be killed were punished further by losing their main resource for survival, i.e: their weapon, and player’s good enough to score a kill were given even more power. So I decided that for now players will keep their weapons on death, (the weapon-jacking mechanic still remains in place) and the maximum number of weapons you can hold is now three.

Speaking of weapons, I’m now referring to them as “Halloween Props” as that’s what they are in the lore. We also now have different skins for the long-range class of props, each with their own projectile so now everyone will know whose projectiles are whose. No more dodging a bullet you shot yourself. In addition, players now will select their starting prop before the match starts.

The final major change I made is the addition of a tutorial mode. This took the most time to make as I had to write a dialogue box engine that supports multi-colored text. Most of the examples I found online were horribly written so I decided to make my own that simply calls one script, and uses one text box object. This new tutorial mode gives a safe place for players to learn how to play they game and experiment with different socket combinations before playing an actual match. It’s still a little buggy, but those will be ironed out with subsequent updates.

Change log:
——————————0.0.3———————————

-Added a Tutorial Mode that explains the basics of how to play
-Revised inventory and socket systems
-Now you can only carry 3 weapons
-Players now choose their first weapon before a match starts
and immediately are equipped with it at match-start.
-More straight forward socketing approach
-Sockets are less cluttered with text and have icons that
show the altering behavior each one is equipped with.
-Added trick or treat system where you get ingredients
by pressing ‘A’ on the house doors
-Added “Kid gun-runner” who you can buy weapons from.
Press ‘A’ on the kid if you are holding
an ingredient. Do this 4 times to then be able
to buy a weapon.
-Added 3 new weapon skins to the “Ranged” weapon class:
Foam Blaster, Plastic Bow, Racquet ‘n’ Ballz
-Now players keep equipped weapons on death
-Added a snowman sprite for frozen characters.
-Added dialogue box engine
-Changed the ingredient sprites to Halloween candies instead of arbitrary objects
-Made projectiles with “Through” actions destroy on collide to reduce damage
-Lessened amount of damage from 20 to 15 on normal hits
-Updated Slingshot sprite
-Changed weapon grasp riser color from fuschia to purple

Fixed:
-Costume selection collision masks were 2x too big
-Bug where being frozen and then moving the control
stick would result in a frozen animation state post-freezing