Introduction

We are in the homestretch now! It's the penultimate devlog of our little sumo wrestling game that somehow incorporates magnets. And that means it's time to add A LOT of polish into our game, finish rough corners and all in all improve the player experience.

Quick recap: We're making a local multiplayer, player vs player, sumo game where you need to push all of your friends out of the ring (and maybe ruin some friendships along the way ;) ). But there's a twist! All of you are magnets so you'll attract or repel other players AND objects (like bullets and bombs)  that get thrown your way! Last man standing wins the round!

Now let's dive into all these polishing details we've added this week...

Feel the Game

Yes, you did read that right, you can now feel the game! Talk about immersion, right?
When your player should be shaking to its core by, for example, standing too close to a bomb, your controller will be shaking and that means you'll be shaking with it! Whenever the player gets stunned, they will start shaking and so will you ;)

Tweaking animations

Last time we checked it, the players were walking in the arena, but their animation speed did not match the movement speed. This made the player look very unnatural as it only took one step forward, but ended up at least three steps further. Luckily, I can tell you that this week, the player follows the laws of nature and moves its feet as fast as it moves its position.

On top of that, there are now animations for when the player falls out of the arena. Look at it!

Uh...no.. How did that get in here? Sorry!
Here's the right one:

New HUD

Last week, we learned from our playtesting sessions that our HUD is not very good. Players reported not looking at it and were not sure what all the elements did. And we have to adimt, we agree: the HUD could be way, way better! So we sat down as a group and brainstormed some new concepts for our improved HUD. This is what we came up with:

No more weird color streaks, no more invisible score and (most importantly) the players will recognise their own HUD thanks to the character being displayed in it! Be sure to let us know what you think of this new HUD version and how we might be able to improve it even further!

Small Details

Polish is all about adding small details here and there to increase your immersion and improve your experience. So let's rapid fire some of these small details:

Particles and sound

We've been steadily adding particles and sound to all interactions in the game. There's a big list what has been added, but these are the coolest ones:

• When objects collide, particles spawn showing the collision
• There's a bell indicating the end of a round
• Crowd cheers get louder when a point is scored
• When the game is paused, sound is muffled
• And more (but you'll have to find out for yourself!) 

Rotating walls

These now move randomly. They can go backwards, they can go forwards. Cool beans.

UI Animations

Having still images in a fast-paced game didn't seem right. So the countdown at the start of a round is now animated and some other UI elements have also gotten some movement.

the FUTURE?

Even in this last week of development, we won't sit still. We've got a brand new HUD to add to the game. Next to that, adding player feedback is the name of the game: adding more particles, making actions and interactions really clear, adding sounds, adding even more particles. Next to that we'll also focus on playtesting and balancing our game so it's fun and fair to play!

By next week our Itch page should also be updated to contain all the information you will need to download and play the game for yourself. But if you want to play the game right now, be sure to check out our latest stable build (which is conveniently attached to this devlog). Have fun breaking it in ways we didn't prepare for! Feel free to leave feedback, comments or profess your love for all things magnetic. Whatever floats your boat.

Gooooby!