Hello and Καλήν ἡμέραν ("kalín iméran") to the FINAL devlog for Olympunch!

This week is extra special as it marks not only the completion of the game, but also our time together as a team. We'd like to thank you for tuning in to our dev-logs, and we hope you enjoy the game :)

This week we focused on sufficiently polishing the game, both on the art and technical sides. First lets take a look at the art!

Logo

Look at that sweet new logo! The creation of it is one thing, but we also had the time to make a new animated game-start intro to knock you right out of this world.

Particles

A plethora of new particles were produced this week. This was a high priority task for this final polish sprint, because the particles really bring the game to life. We then also made sure to implement all the particles, so that we could test how they look in the game.

After testing, we revisited a lot of the systems to give them all the final kick they needed! Some of the particles that needed the biggest rework, were the ones to show when a player gets hit. Below you will find an example of a polished hit particle!

Though we perfected a lot of the particles, we can't show them all here. Test them yourself in the game and gaze upon some wonderful explosions! However, we'll showcase several of the important ones below.

Starting it off strong, we had one last series of particles we wanted to add : indicators on how strong a punch will be. You see, when you charge your fist up, there should be an indicator for the stage of strength. This particle makes sure players know how powerful the knockback on the enemy will be!

There are 3 stages to it.

The first stage:

The second stage:

And the third stage:

Of course, we have these same particles for the blue player as well! They look exactly the same... but in blue!

Another important particle effect that was a must to add was the effect to respawn! So we created it! What you see here is a white version of this particle, however, in the game it is colored for each player respectively.

A little update on the projection particle we mentioned last Devlog: It didn't make it into the game. Some internal planning changes and scrapping of other components led to it not making the cut. But hey, that's one problem less to solve, right?!

Icons: UI and HUD

We finalized our UI and HUD, making a few tweaks to help players understand the game more easily, and also making several brand new additions, such as our brand new on-theme 'controls' and 'tips' menus. 

A small but significant change, we've renamed the 'speed' indicator bar to 'power' instead, which is more aligned with the meaning of the bar.

We also polished the Winner Decided icon! It looks much less blurry now.

To polish up the Main Menu and Pause Menu in the game, we redesigned parts of the layout, which now has a beautiful end result! We also added some extra animations to have fluid transitions, both between the Start Menu and the Main Level, and also when opening the Info Screens (UI) from inside the menus. 

If you want to experience the full scope of animations, you can download the game now!

Now onto the technical parts!

Camera shakes

We have implemented camera shake effects that occur when throwing a punch, and when the player falls out of the arena or gets hit by a lightning strike resulting in death. These additions enhance the overall gameplay experience, adding a dynamic visual impact during key events.

Sound

This week was focused on completing the final tweaks of our game.

The main feature that needed to be fully implemented was the sound manager. Fortunately, we were able to find the main issue. The singleton which controlled the sound did not have a reference to the world, meaning that he could not possibly know where to play the sound.

After that was dealt with, it was time to implement them in game, and call them at the correct time.

For level sounds, easy in and outs were added to have a smooth transition between each level.

Moreover, it included one special woosh sound, playable every 110 degrees the player rotates. This fully embraces the player. With sound, camera movement and speed particles you can really feel the speed of the player.

Camera zoom in on last knock out

When the opposing player has only one life remaining, and you've reached the maximum power level with a fully charged punch, the camera will dramatically zoom in, and the game will enter slow motion, creating an impressive knockout effect.

Fixing Bugs

- Barrier issue

The barrier would sometimes prevent the player from passing through while in a stunned state. However, we have addressed this issue and have successfully resolved it in a relatively short amount of time.

- Kill Zone issue

The kill volume we implemented did not consistently eliminate the player, leading to instances where the player would fall all the way to the bottom of the mountain.

- Punch consistency issue

The punch strength would vary significantly, being extremely strong at times and then unexpectedly weak, despite the code appearing to be correct. After investigation, we discovered that there was an overlapping issue with a trigger box that was mistakenly placed around the entire scene.

- Restart Loop Issue

We have encountered an issue where an additional controller spawns when starting the game, and this problem reoccurs when attempting to reopen the level. Despite conducting extensive research, it appears that this particular issue has not been documented previously. However, we have managed to find a workaround by developing our own function to restart the level, and we are pleased to report that it effectively resolves the problem for restarting the game.

Once again, thank you for tuning in, and Αντίο ("Antio") for now!