First update after game jam (version 0.0.2)

It's been a while since I posted the first version/prototype, so it might be time for an update.

Originally this was a prototype done for the Ludum dare jam, but since I like the idea I want to explore it a bit more.  The game is still in development/pre-alpha so nothing is final yet. To keep track of things I will try to version everything I publish, so this update corresponds to version 0.0.2. That being said, don't expect proper versioning until 0.1.0 (which will presumably be the first beta).

Updates

The version submitted to the jam was very rough, unpolished and short. During this month I have been working with 2 goals on mind: improve the visuals and add more levels.

Visuals

For the art style I want to go with something kind of minimalistic. I think that simple shapes and flat colours have their own charm and are a good fit for this game. This is also beneficial in terms of implementation as by reducing the number of elements and keeping the shapes relatively simple the transitions between 2D and 3D can be smoother. 

In the visual aspect there has been some progress and, while there is still work to do, now the game looks a bit closer to the idea I had on mind. Some of the updates are:

• Changed the UI. It's still provisional but now it looks much better.
• Added some player animations, still very rough thought.
• Changed the 3D camera (I might still use the old camera in some levels, but the new one fits better the original idea).
• Added lighting and shadows to the 3D scene.

Coding

The other thing I wanted is to add more levels. In this matter there hasn't been much visible progress, most of the work has been done on polishing internal things. The progress done in regards to game mechanics and level design is:

• Some refactor of the code after the game jam. Including some reorganisation of the assets and scenes.
• Updated player controller.
• Preparing desktop version (only Windows for now).
• Implemented save system for desktop version.
• Added 2 levels (one of them is a tutorial level which was already done for the jam but couldn't integrate in the jam submission).

Final comments

Overall I the project is progressing fine. There has been significant changes since first update, the only thing is that the progress is too slow. But that's also in part because I'm learning Godot and when I want to add or tweak something I spend a significant amount of time finding out how to do it to get the results I wish. As it happens when learning something new, sometimes it feels like for each step forward I take two steps backwards.

My current plan is to keep polishing the game, fix some bugs in the player controller, add more levels, mechanics and bugs, then fix the new bugs.  Also, now that the jam is over,  I can use third party assets like sound effects so I want to improve the audio of the game too.

Finally mention that I will keep the jam version available, mostly for reference. So now when you play the web version you can choose between the jam and post-jam version (since the web build is giving me some problems in the future I might only publish a desktop build).