Hi there,

This week we were tasked with finalizing our prototype. The goal is clear. 
Make the game playable with at least 2 players and have ALL core mechanics implemented.

With the most important goal : make the game FUN.

Now how do we achieve something like FUN.

Our first concerns were the controls. Since Pew Pew Pantheon isn't a normal platformer or twin stick shooter we need to make sure that we find a control scheme that is intuitive to our players. We came up with 2 control schemes. Our plan was to find the 'best' control scheme yet we quickly found out that there is no 'best'. There are a lot of wrong ways to create the controls but everyone has a different taste.
While testing the controls we were already split between which one felt best so we decided to have both implemented in the game.
Think of it like choosing Manual or Automatic in Mario Kart. Every player can just choose before they begin and it only takes a second to dial in your choice.

Now that the controls feel how they should. We how powerful our controls are. 

Here are a few of the key questions and our thought process:

How fast can we shoot? How high can we jump? How many times can we get hit?

While not all of these questions have definitive answers yet we have come up with some manner of handling them.

How fast can we shoot? Well shooting has a lot of impact because we use rockets. We want shooting to have a really big "OOMPF".
That is why we chose to have our shots at a cooldown of 1 second for now. We might implement a charge system. Where you can store multiple bullets and fire those in quick succession but then have to wait for them to recharge. Our focus is to reward good aim and to avoid mindless bullet spamming.

How high can we jump?As it turns out. The jump height (within reason) didn't change all that much to the gameplay. The jump certainly needs some speed but what really impacts our jump mechanic is what you can do while mid-air. You can't move so what is there left to do then? Shooting of course. While mid-air you can shoot and the recoil of your shot will push you away. This allows for some crazy movement and skillful dodges.

How many times can we get hit?This is actually highly correlated with the shooting speed. Since we really wanted to have to rockets feel big and impact full. We want them to be dodgeable but still not impossible to hit. The game has to be fast paced and has to feel like a mayhem couch party game. I think we can all agree that in the main game mode... A single rocket should kill you.

Those were some game play decisions we made but the art part of Pew Pew Pantheon hasn't been idle either.
While I won't go into detail on the art assets this week, there is a sneak peek of the art-style that will be uploaded here soon.

And now the actual question. Did we achieve our goal. Is the prototype fun?

Well it is hard to answer, but there is something I caught myself doing way too often.
Every time we implemented a new feature I caught myself playing the game longer than was needed to test the feature.
So while this game is certainly in an early prototyping stage. I do see it becoming something we can be really proud of and something that we will enjoy to play ourselves.

That was it for this week. I wish a great week to anyone reading this.

Greetings and until next week.

 Group 15