I recently rewatched the excellent and highly entertaining “Juice it or lose it” talk by Martin Jonasson and Petri Purho. Trying to find ways to make the game fun without just resorting to camera shake.
While watching the talk, I found two fields that my game is lacking in for game feel:
Particles and sound.
Particles
Currently, we only have particles as a function: either signify a sword clashing with another sword or a sword hitting a limb. What if there were particle systems that were more cosmetic? Like small puffs of dust from footsteps or a trail behind the sword that gets more intense the faster it moves.
Furthermore I’d like to revisit the blood particles, maybe increase the size of the cone to make a wider spurt. Or perhaps add a small explosion of blood before starting the trickle of blood.
Sounds
Currently, the game has no sound whatsoever, which is a huge oversight. Luckily I recently downloaded the sizeable GDC 2017 Sound Pack from Sonniss. This contains a wide variety of sounds which can be used in whatever capacity the user desires, they are generally of a high quality so hopefully I should be able to find some footsteps and metal impacts. Perhaps some background wind too.
Priorities
As time for the unit grows short, I need to accept that there may not be time to implement all I want to do. As of this Sunday, work will cease on the development of this project to give me adequate time to prepare the necessary documentation/post-mortem.
This is the Trello board as it currently stands. Admittedly, it hasn’t been updated or organised as much as it should have been. I am currently working on the final few features to be added to the game’s to do list. I’m not expecting to be able to do them all, but having a clearly defined list will help with prioritising.
Robert J Harper 