Planet Healing
How Progression Works
Today was an extremely productive day and I was able to iron out a lot of the core mechanics I had worked on in the previous weeks! Additionally, I finally got around to create the main progression system of the game. I built out the framework that will allow the planet to heal as more trees are fully planted. You can see in the gif above what one of the healing animations will look like.
There are roughly 8 planet variations that the player will experience as they are recovering the planet. Each recovery state will require more trees in order to activate. Further, I added a planet health bar in the bottom of screen (I will update the UI to be easier to interpret) so the player will have an idea of how far they have progressed, and how much longer they have until victory!
Player Health
You will also see that there is a new green health bar on the left hand side of the screen. That is the player health. I have updated the bug swarm to do damage each time they come into contact with the player. I also added a fun force field effect to repel the bugs after they have done damage. Before I added this the bugs would swarm you way to easily and it was easy to become overwhelmed. This way you get a chance to breath and plan your next move.
I thought long and hard about how the player would be able to heal. Ultimately I decided that the planet atmosphere will be where the player heals. Currently if the player is within the planets atmosphere, they will gain a single health point every 10 seconds. I found that this was the most balanced way to achieve these mechanic.
Oh yeah, I also added an orbit effect to really sell the world. It is wild how something as small as making the planet rotate helps elevate the game to a whole new level!
Last Tasks to Finish
- Spawning seeds on the trees every so often.
- This will make sure there is a good supply of seeds over time
- Working out how frequent the bugs will spawn
- Adding final sprites
- Adding more plots for seeds on the planet
- A game over and menu screen
- A short cinematic in the beginning to set the mood and act as a tutorial for the player
Is there anything else you think would be good to add before finishing up this project? Let me know what you think would be good to add, or just let me know how you think I am doing on this jam!