Dev Log: Sky Sister Portals
As I gather more feedback and suggestions my task list for Sky Sisters unfortunately is exploding with tasks and bug fixes! I'm having a lot of fun working on the game but by now I'm getting itchy to finish it. Remember when like, last year, I was going to finish it and put it out there? Well, so much for that.
One of the pieces of feedback that has been lingering for awhile is addressing what happens after a boss fight. The original idea was that after a boss fight far enough into the game an exit portal would open up and you'd have the option to take it and end the game. By doing this you double your score and officially "survive" the game. If you waited long enough then the exit portal would disappear and your next chance to take one would be after the next boss fight.
The whole "waiting around until the exit portal disappears" wasn't really working out that well. It was tough for players to understand it, and a lot of times they would accidentally miss their chance to take the portal because they didn't know how to use it right away. So now I've taken out the single exit portal and I've replaced it with two portals.
The portal with the skull on it takes you further into the game and you will face tougher challenges and more bosses, and the portal with the heart is the path to salvation. I've also made some overall changes to the game's timer system that lets the players wait as long as they want to make their choice. The game now only counts "survival time" which means the game timer only ticks when you're facing a threat. Otherwise it will wait around for you to move on.
I've also made a change to the way that the sky backgrounds work. Before it would slowly fade through a number of color palettes, but now I change the palette of the sky after taking the skull portal. The sudden change in the sky color after taking a portal feels like some form of progress, I think. There is some demand for more background art, but we'll see if I can get that far.
One of the pieces of feedback that has been lingering for awhile is addressing what happens after a boss fight. The original idea was that after a boss fight far enough into the game an exit portal would open up and you'd have the option to take it and end the game. By doing this you double your score and officially "survive" the game. If you waited long enough then the exit portal would disappear and your next chance to take one would be after the next boss fight.
The whole "waiting around until the exit portal disappears" wasn't really working out that well. It was tough for players to understand it, and a lot of times they would accidentally miss their chance to take the portal because they didn't know how to use it right away. So now I've taken out the single exit portal and I've replaced it with two portals.
The portal with the skull on it takes you further into the game and you will face tougher challenges and more bosses, and the portal with the heart is the path to salvation. I've also made some overall changes to the game's timer system that lets the players wait as long as they want to make their choice. The game now only counts "survival time" which means the game timer only ticks when you're facing a threat. Otherwise it will wait around for you to move on.
I've also made a change to the way that the sky backgrounds work. Before it would slowly fade through a number of color palettes, but now I change the palette of the sky after taking the skull portal. The sudden change in the sky color after taking a portal feels like some form of progress, I think. There is some demand for more background art, but we'll see if I can get that far.
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