Screen Shake and Idle Animations

Screen shake was a feature I wanted to implement for a while. It’s one of those juice factors that really brings up the fun factor of a game. I used the great tutorial at KidsCanCode to implement and I’m happy with the results of it!

I also added some basic hover idle animations, which add a bit of life to the game. I have it as a configurable option, so when I finally add my options menu, the player can decide to turn it off if they want.

Bullets and Poison Gas

I added bullets so V can finally use those revolvers he’s been toting around. This also lets him shoot through the new pesky clouds of poisonous gas by blasting enemies from a distance. The poison gas is similar to blood in that it damages the player when they enter it. It’s a new obstacle for the V to watch out for!

Goblin enemies

You’ve probably noticed that there are a few new Goblin enemies, three in fact. We have the standard Goblin who chases the player, Goblin Archer who shoots in the same horizontal direction they’re facing, and Goblin Shamans who cast lightning bolts in a diagonal. Rats of course make a return to Saga 3. Speaking of Saga 3…

Saga 3 completed!

Another 15 levels down! Since I’ve implemented a lot of the baseline features, I set a goal of 1 week per Saga for the remaining Sagas (at the time, it was Sagas 2-5). I’ve kept to the deadline, but it was tough for Saga 3.

While I use a lot of inheritance for my enemy code, the Goblin enemies were all different enough to require some additional logic/children classes. The chase Goblins required me to hook up an A Star object to my tilemap and link it to my enemies. The Goblin Archer made me fine-tune my physics layer system so the archer wouldn’t get blocked by other enemies. Goblin Shaman gave me a nightmare getting the lightning particles to work right shudder.

I also implemented the juice features above, as I’d been wanting to incorporate them for a while and I think it really makes the game a more cohesive experience.

Features Implemented TL;DR

• Saga 3 completed
• Screen shake implemented
• A star tile map implemented
• Goblin, Goblin Archer, Goblin Shaman, and Boss Crusty added
• Sounds split into different buses
• Dynamite uses area2d to damage all enemies in a 3x3 grid, vice ray cast
• Bullet item added (Range weapon)
• Poison Gas added

Next Steps

Only two Sagas remain, 4 and 5! I’m happy with the pace I’ve kept and I’m really striving to keep development time under 3 months. I’m trying my best to deliver a fun and competent puzzler in a short period of time to experience the full game dev life cycle.

Below is my project board. There is still a lot to be done, but I’m clunking away, and the MVP feature list is getting shorter and shorter.

If you like V-Hunter Puzzler Dx so far please follow me here on itch or elsewhere on my linktree!