It's time for another devlog!

Hello again. It's been another month of nonboss related development and I'm here to share what I've been working on during this time. So yeah, I clarify "nonboss related development" because I guess that's the most exciting thing for the people who actually enjoy the game. You know, they'd probably like having more game to enjoy. I hope to start working on it soon (as soon as next week if nothing unexpected comes up) so hopefully next month's devlog will have some news on that.

With that said, let me show you the main features implemented this month (now with gifs!):

- A dialog system: this is probably something the game doesn't actually need, but I wanted to implement it just in case. The dialog shown is not final, as it is the first thing that I came up with when testing the feature.

- The boss arena now lights up and there's a new "top score" panel: the boss arena lighting up, as pointless as it may seem, was actually a needed feature. In my testing, when the boss room remained unlit after reloading a checkpoint it was really disorienting and hard to actually know where in the level you where. This gives the player a "landmark" to help guide themselves through the dungeon. The top score panel is a way to use the score system, as with the new "you explore a dungeon and fight bosses" philosophy there is no "victory screen" at the end of a fight to show you how many points you got. Not that they do anything mind you, they are just for bragging rights.

(Note: yes, I'm aware there's a bug showing in the gif. I'll fix it, don't worry, but you get the idea)

- The main and pause menus are now keyboard and controller compatible: now you should be able to access everything in these menus (except the "Stats" screen, because that's probably going away in the future) without using your mouse.

...and that's it. It's not much, I know, but that's how it is right now. Classes for me start this Thursday but I don't think it will slow down development that much as I already worked on the days I'd have free time with classes anyway. Before I finish up the post, let me also talk about a couple of things:

- The Android version: so I fixed the issue that made it unplayable, but in testing I realized it was just painful to play. The controls didn't work well at all and dodging the enemy's attack felt impossible and not fun. I'm looking into alternate control schemes (namely, not having a joystick and letting the user moving their finger across the screen to move the character) and though it feels a lot better, it's still not good enough for my liking. I'll keep on testing this on my free time, but it might take a while for the Android version to come out, if at all. I don't want to release an inferior, less fun to play version of the game just because I can, so if I don't end up finding a fix for this I'll just cancel the Android version of the game. I hope it doesn't come to that, though.

- You did all these cool things, why isn't the updated game available to download?: yeah, it probably won't be available until the next boss is at least accessible, but most likely finished (finished from a gameplay related viewpoint. Animations and music might not be final). The reason for this is that I'm a single person working on all the programming related matters of the game, so what ends up happening is I start working on something, get stuck and work on something else in the meantime, or just do a very small test to see what I implemented worked and continue with the next feature. This is prone to create errors and sideffects, most of which I don't actually notice until I do a test run of the game. I'd waste too much time doing a full playthrough of the game every time I change something, so  I decided to just update the game whenever a new boss comes out, as that's the most fun and meaningful content I feel I can give you. I also thought about creating a "test" version of the game for the people that really want to test the latest features and don't want to wait until the next boss comes out but, to be honest, the install userbase is so small I don't think there's anybody that cares enough for that to be something worthwhile. If you do care though, let me know and I'll try to set something up.

- Gushing about conventions: we went to a local convention a couple of weeks ago to show the game to new people and it was an absolute blast! I'm not good with crowds so it was a little stressful but it was completely worth it. We got a lot of feedback and, surprisingly, most people seemed to like the game. Or at least the basic idea of it. And, even more surprisingly, some people seemed really passionate about it, which was extremely humbling for me. It was a great motivation to keep working on the game. To everybody who stopped by our stand, thank you. I hope we get to do it again soon.

I don't think there's anything more I need to say. I'll see you next month, hopefully with some news on the next boss! Have a great day!

If you are interested in our social media:

- Blackphilip (makes the music)

- Carlos Rodas (Rourrodas) (makes the graphics)

- My Twitch channel, where I stream myself developing the game almost every Monday and Wednesday