Post-Jam Update

Enemy AI

The jam version of the enemy behaviour did basically two things:

• Walk away from other enemies in order to avoid them ending up on top of one another
• And follow the player in a straight line. Making them get stuck or move constantly rubbing the walls.

But in the new version, enemies also avoid them. If you put a perpendicular wall between you and an enemy, he is still not going to walk around it -even though in certain angles enemies can appear to be doing so, there is no path finding here-, but he is not going to touch the wall either. Making them look less as bad programmed and more like just stupid.

At some point of working in this update I tried to make the enemies move using actual path finding. But that, surprisingly to me, made the game easier and less fun to play by turning it into a shooting gallery where you just had to let the bullet bounce between you and the next enemy of the long line that was coming to you.

There is also one more change in how the AI works: now enemies only go for you if they are close enough. In the previous version, no matter where in the laverith it was, that every enemy was actively trying to get to the player. What made a lot of them show up outside of the initial room in a matter of seconds. That could suppose an overwhelming amount of enemies at the same time, but also made my testers -family and friends- end up fighting the majority of enemies in the same initial spot. With the new version, the number of enemies that chase you at the same time is more limited making the game less unfair and more accessible, at the same time that force the player to move around the labyrinth and fight in different locations.

Turrets

In the raw version, turrets just fired every X seconds. You could learn the timing, but there wasn’t a way to know exactly when you could or couldn't turn the corner or get in front of them. Now visual and audio clues inform the player that turrets -all of them at the same time- are just about to shoot.

With the update, turrets also have a laser beam that let the player know where they are aiming for and so, if there is one outside of the screen view.

New Enemy Type: Path Finder

I discarded the idea of an AI that knows how to move around the labyrinth for the basic enemies, but reused it in this new enemy type. They walk to random points on the map, until they are close enough to the player. Their slow speed prevent them to be the most immediate menace during multiple-enemies encounters. Which, alongside their multiple health points, turns them into a low priority objective for the player, that has to fight around them as a dynamic wall.

Small Changes In The Level Design

There is a clear Pacman inspiration in the Onellet’s level design. The core idea behind it is that every point on the labyrinth should be connected with the rest of the map by more than one path. Guaranteeing that no enemy by itself is able to corner the player.

Turns out, I missed one dead end at the top of the map. So I changed it.

Camera Changes

The camera follows the player with a delay to make its movement feel smooth and more natural. But it was to big and the player use to get really close to the screen limit. Now that the delay is smaller, trying to keep the character close to the center of the screen, is easier to move around avoiding enemies and the game feels less unfair.

Game Feel Improvements

• Now there is a small camera shake whenever the bullet touches an enemy.

• For the challenge it is meant to be, this is a game where the player is most likely going to die numerous times. So the respawning process has to be as less annoying as possible. After some testing I think the jam version of the death screen was too long. Been force to pass through that process multiple times in less than a minute and having to wait more time that you’ve been playing to restart when you accidentally hit one of those first enemies felt really bad. So I reduced it from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds.

Bug Fixing

• The bullet now can not be grabbed from, or released to, the opposite side of a wall.

Browser Playable

During the jam I had the feeling that browser games worked better. The game’s page had more views than downloads. Is easier for someone who’s checking jams’s submissions or the most recent games to enter, give 1 or 2 tries to a small game and move on if it ends up not liking you. Because sometimes downloading a game takes longer than the time you’ll be actually playing it.

So the game is now browser playable. The version that I uploaded to the jam is still available to download.

This was my very first game jam. It was a truly amazing and enriching experience, and I’m really happy with the final product. This update polishes the game and makes sure that it is as fun as it can be while maintaining the feeling that it is a game that came out from a 48 hours jam.
Any feedback about the game, and how I express myself in english -I’m not a native speaker- will be very appreciated. Thanks you for reading. And enjoy the game!