Yay!

Post Punch is approved and has move into production. This week is all about get a clean, playable game with the main features implemented and getting the environment designed so it can be made in the coming weeks. We've entered our first sprint!

Stage

Our three artists explored how the stage should look. The goal for these sketches was to nail down the composition of the level. After last week's prototyping we decided against the Z-depth layering system. It didn't add much to the gameplay and in fact caused more confusion and frustration. Hey, you live, you learn.
Multiple ideas were considered, some of them were: One-way platforms, roofs as platforms, mostly rock as background or mostly sky, etc.
We decided against the cliff-face occupying the majority of the background as that gives a very different mood than what we intended for Post Punch.
The one-way platforms is something we think can make the delivery prevention more interesting, we have decided to implement this into the game.

Assets

This week we also wanted to get the main look of our buildings down and some of the main interactable assets, as they are a vital features in our stage.

Buildings

Package

Tech-Art

Our Technical Artist made a stage manager for unity that allows us to load in different levels and to easily implement a loading / starting screen. This is something that would most likely have to be implemented later so he felt it would be best to get it out of the way now.
It functions a lot like levels in Unreal Engine, very cool.

Mechanics

This week we had to discuss our main mechanics and some of the observations we made during prototyping.
We had a big question. What features will we would keep in the game? Because we had a lot of ideas but not all of them help up. It was important to decide this early on so no mistakes could be made later in production.
Several Ideas were canned, because we felt they took away from the main intention of Post Punch.
First Idea to go was giving the player the option to block an attack, but this put a lot of emphasis on the fighting aspect. We want more focus on preventing the delivery and not on PVP combat. 
We also intended there to be a delay when delivering a package, but decided that this takes away from the gameplay. The player should be rewarded instantly if they've managed to out manoeuvre their opponent and deliver the package. The delay also made the player wait, which isn't the fast pace experience we want for Post Punch.

Game

Now let's take  a look at the state of the game.
Our developers are on fire, they've been hard at work implementing the movement, package and delivery, and one-way platforms.

Here you can see the movement, delivery system and package . It also has some much needed player feedback when the package is delivered. This was something missing in our previous prototypes.

The One-way platform is something we thought of while discussing our main mechanics. Here you can see it demonstrated.

Controls

And finally we've got some button mapping done! The game will for sure be playable on PC, but we're also aiming for a Nintendo Switch joycon setup, since that is the most friendly couch co-up console out there and would fit the game perfectly.

Thanks for checking in, until next week!