"Yet Another Platforming Challenge" pre alpha 0.2 Release

Yet Another Platforming Challenge Pre Alpha 0.2

Oh man version 2 of my little game "Yet Another Platforming Challenge" is out and its got a bit bigger.  Sorry for being a little late I got sick last week so I was kind of forced to push things back a bit. Lets get on with this update. The first thing you will notice is when you open the game now there is a main menu.

I added this because I'll be needing some menu elements soon like a local score board and an options menu so you can change the internal setting like resolution, full screen, changing the keyboard/gampad buttons and so forth. Don't worry I'm going to add in menu graphics later on but for now I'll keep it simple. Now to get to the game just press the start button and it should take you to the game if you press exit it will quit the game as it should.

Once in the game you'll probably noticed that the hub is a bit better looking. I'm using a new font that from a font pack. This font pack contain a number of really nice looking fonts so follow this link if you want to download them for your game as well (https://github.com/dalton5000/Godot-Fontpack/). The new hub features a Score counter, Death Counter, and a timer. The Score is pretty much the same as it was in the last version of the game, however, I decided that it would be fun to keep track of the players deaths because well its ones deaths sometimes plus it doesn't affect the Score at all. The next thing is time. I've been designing this game around the "Speed Runner" concept so adding in an in game timer just seemed logical plus if you run through the game multiple times these stats should improve with each run.

Another thing I've added into the game is a simple menu so the player can keep going or exit back to the main menu. Just press the "escape" button on the keyboard will bring up this menu or on a playstation 4 controller press the "options" button. Now lets move to game additions...

Silver Medal Bonus Areas 

There are now 4 new bonus Area in the game that will award you with a "Silver Medal. " These "Silver Medals " will be used for the ending of the game which will get added in a later date. For now they are simply an award for completing an extra area that can be bypassed if you desire. Like I stated in the last devlog I was going to add in off the course areas that will give you a challenge and thats what these bonus areas are for at the moment. The first one is near the descending buzz saw area.

As you can see the challenge here is to go up several areas to dodge spear traps in order to if you complete the mini course here you are rewarded a lovely "Silver Medal " .

The next Silver Medal " area is located after you get passed the evil drones and this course is all about buzz saws. And I do mean a bunch of buzz saws. 

Hopefully the screen shot above can give you some context to what I mean by a lot of buzz saws also you get a nice  "Silver Medal " out of it. 

The next "Silver Medal " is located in the lazer maze. Now if you think the lazer maze is difficult to travel then this challenging bonus room will either be heaven you or a dreaded hell scape. 1) It isn't a maze 2) Its linear and 3) There are a bunch of lazers that will burn your face.

Yeah, there are a lot of lazers but you get a nice lovely "Silver Medal ".

As for the final bonus room. It is located in the new area which I'll discuss in the next section. I changed the theme up a bit there to add because instead of dealing with 1 single hazard your dealing with 2 which is more spears giving he area you just entered and the evil drones.

However, as for the original "Silver Medal " medal area that was apart of the lazer maze. Sadly I decided to remove it because it didn't really fit the lazer maze that well.

Spear Area Course

Alright time for the meat and potatoes of this update. And that is the Spear Area. This area is way more strait forward when compared to the lazer maze area. Its is quite linear for the exception of the forth bonus room which is located at the bottom right of the spear area. 

As seen in the screen shot you start out in the bottom left side of the spear area. Basically this area test your ability to get past the spear hazards. The first area will seem kind of random because there are spears jetting out (well it kind of was but I restructure a bit into an orderly chaos sort of way).

Once you get passed the orderly chaos are you are greated with a split path. You can 1) keep heading up to complete the Spear Area or 2) head down into the abyss and complete Bonus Room 4 "Drones and Spears." That is why I digging the bonus room concept because you don't need to complete that area if you don't want to.  Its just an optional challenge. Alright moving on.

Once you get past that area first area it will be a jumping obstacle course for a bit. There are 2 different varients to this. The first one is simple jump over some same height spears. The next section that the first idea but varies the heights of the spear traps. Now before takling the last section make sure to press the button on the right because if you don't well you'll have to backtrack.

After pressing the button the last area is a movement test to get pass a gauntlet of spears. After that you have completed the Spear Area. Yay!

The finally of version 0.2

After you are done with everything that the level the magenta lazer door is finally off and you can get on the teleporter pad and its goes to a...

A spare box in the middle of know were and... Trophy, Trophy TROPHY!!! A shine site for sore eyes. You jump to collect that shiney award at the end of all your troubles and...

You receive a nice summary for your hard work. Which you can ether press restart the level or exit back to the main menu.

Wrapping up and what is next for 0.3 update

Well I guess this wraps up the 0.2 update in a nut shell. The game itself is coming along nice considering the being sick for 4 days setback and I'm quite happy with the progress for the exception of the art side of the project. As for upgrading the visuals I'll have a better answer during the next devlog which is going to be coming next week some time. I'm going to be adding in the biggest area in the game which is going to be called "The 8 Paths of Pain." Its going to pretty much be a beefier version of the 2 splitting path section, however, all 8 areas will have a 3 hazard requirement so I might need to add in an additional hazard of some sort like falling platforms for example. Also I'm debating if I want to change up the spear area and make it more non linear as well. Well y'all take care and I'll see you in the next devlog. 

DevLog #2

Lets Play #1