Progress Update - July 29th, 2023
Hello, I'm back with another update. It's been like two days and I done quite a bit. Stuff like cleanup, optimizations , tweaking variables, and all that. I'm here to showcase a core mechanic in the game and it's uses: Dashing (or orbiting, I'm still thinking about the name , considering it's not really dashing.)
Yes! I added the one mechanic that every top-down shooter (or any platformer of that matter) has! To be fair, the dash is a pretty convenient method of giving the player extra mobility. I have thought about adding this mechanic ever since development began, but I've planned how it's going to work 11 days ago.As you saw in the video , instead of directional dashing, the player orbits around the mouse cursor 's position relative to what it position would be in the level. This simple change allows for unique opportunities . The player could dash around obstacles or to safety. I've even made a last second decision to make it so the camera stops following the player when dashing and added a little window of opportunity to get a shot in before the camera repositions itself. The cooldown time has been shortened in this video for the sake of testing and the convenience. I'm intending for the cooldown time to be at least 20 seconds.
What's next?
I'm planning to smooth out camera movement when dashing as it can get pretty disorienting . Maybe after that, I may add basic GUI. As of now, I consider this game to be in the pre-alpha stages. I'm not sure when I would consider this game to be in alpha, but I'll most likely consider this game to be in Beta once there is a win and lose condition but it'll take a while before I'll get to that.
Well, see you later.