Alpha Release

New Features:

• Render trails for Claire’s spin attack and slide, and jump trails for both characters
• Full set of walking, attack, jumping animations for Claire and Netty
• New effects to improve combat juiciness
• Robots move and attack much faster, making them more of a threat
• Original background music
• Platforms for Netty’s first tree are much larger
• Altered the end of Netty’s second section slightly to be more straightforward
• Added a second section for the combined character to play
• Revamped the controls guide in the pause menu
• UI jump meter now starts full, ticks down as jumps are used, and shows how many jumps each character has in total
• Made the camera much less sensitive
• Added many decorative objects to improve level theming

Bugfixes:

• Claire or Netty will not be checkpointed back to the beginning of the level, which previously resulted in a softlock
• Claire should no longer be able to lose her slide ability
• Robots now properly reset if they lose sight of the player, or the player dies
• Increased joystick deadzone on controllers to address a camera drifting issue
• Fixed a wall clip in Claire’s first wall to slide under

Many of our new features were aimed at improving the overall feel of the game, and adding juice wherever possible. The level was very empty previously, with not much to look at aside from the solid colored ground. We wanted to make the level feel more like a zoo, and as such turned each major section into a mini exhibit. Other hints are sprinkled in as well as to the origin of the robots occupying the zoo, and where the humans have all gone. Combat didn’t feel particularly good in the previous iteration, and didn’t provide much feedback to the player aside from the sound effect on robot death. Player death was even worse, simply teleporting the player back to their last checkpoint. Robots now explode in a cloud of sparks on death, and taunt the player if they’re killed.

Most playtesters agreed that Netty’s sections were much too precise, especially when you first gain control of Netty. In order to make the process of learning Netty’s movement easier, we gave the player more room for error. We decided to add a second section for the combined character after getting feedback that the combined character was some players’ favorite playstyle, and were disappointed at the lack of content designed for the combined character. Some playtesters felt that the jump UI was un-intuitive, specifically that it had room for the bar to fill up 5 notches but not every character could fill it up all the way. Jumps are also a resource the player starts with and uses, rather than gaining like a bar filling would imply. So, the jump UI bar now depletes downward to show the player using a jump. Finally, a number of playtesters felt the camera was much too sensitive to small movements, and the sensitivity slider’s minimum setting was still much too high. So, the camera was made less sensitive by default, and the minimum value on the slider was lowered.

For our next iteration, we plan to give Claire, Netty, and the robots more personality when interacting. Specifically, we want to pay respects to Crash Bandicoot and include some humorous death animations for each character, and a taunt animation for the robots to coincide with the taunting dialogue. We’d like to expand the dialogue available to the robots as well, letting them speak outside of killing the player, which should help give them more personality. Dialogue between Claire and Netty doesn’t display much emotion right now, so we plan on adding character portraits for the speaking character to accompany the on-screen text. This will make storytelling more clear, and gives the opportunity to add emotion to Claire and Netty’s faces while they’re talking with each other. We would like to improve the juice of completing the stage as well. We currently end the stage with our studio logo as a placeholder, and want to add more fanfare to completing the stage.