Weekly Devlog: Week 7 of 16

Hey guys, Tyro here.

Posting this a tad late, which is a bit of my fault, but things have also gotten rather hectic as of late. After my car decided to poop itself, taking multiple trips with family(with another happening this upcoming weekend), on top of handling class assignments, everything has been kind of everywhere. BUT! Worry not, as we are still working on the newest additions to the next major build of the game. Here's what we're working with so far:

>A slight nerf to shotgun..
A rather small change, but to start we're reducing enemy shotgun turrets from 15dmg per projectile down to 12. 15x5 is already equal to half your health INSTANTLY(yikes) assuming you are at point blank range. Just 1 or 2 shotguns could easily down you depending on how fast you are moving and the distance from the enemy. Ramming shotguns has proven near impossible to survive due to this, not to mention the projectiles are also quite hard to avoid just by themselves. We've now reduced the damage to compensate for this.

>Scene transitions + level start screens
Rejoice! Now you don't have to worry about your currently selected level starting without you! 

>Particle effects
"EVERYBODY LOVES EXPLOSIONS, RIGHT?! BECAUSE YOU F*CKING BETTER LOVE EXPLOSIONS!" Is something I could imagine Mr Torgue saying in the background. But yes, in all seriousness, we are working on some proper particle effects that are nice and pixelated to fit the game's visual style but also keeping it nice to look at. Right now they are applied to enemies, and we are definitely looking into other opportunities to use them, such as firing weapons.

lastly, I want to announce something that, at least for me, is kinda huge:

>ANIMATIONS!!!!
I am working with a coworker/friend of mine, who(with their permission of course) will soon be revealed upon getting back with full blown reload animations for the enemy turrets! While I would also do them for the player, the tricky thing is that the player's weapon is designed in a way where there isn't a way to represent reloading outside of Ui. Either way, it's exciting to be able to work with my friends on a project as important as this, and I'm confident they'll deliver exactly what the game needs. They have also expressed interest in doing backgrounds too(thank GOD lol), so it's a definite possibility, likely within the next month or so. Stay tuned!