And were back!

I was out of town for a bit and had Covid for almost 2 weeks so I didn't make as much progress as I had hoped.

Systems Updates:

• Added a Jump lockout to avoid people scaling walls by spamming jump in the direction of the wall. (Still somewhat possible and will be adjusted further or forced to jump away from wall)
• Added "Tester Checkpoints" dropdown in the pause menu. Now players testing the game can jump between various sections of each zone to test things without worrying to much about progressing to try out new zones or lose of progress. Testing was very difficult when the player had to struggle through the first parts of the game to get to later zones.

Level Design:

• Forest Zone
  • Reworked some of the rock placements leading up to the canopy
  • Added various triggers to start lowering the forest parallax when the player starts to reach the canopy area
  • Added new "Thorn Panel" assets to replace the old free standing thorn assets in all of the forest zone
  • Added a mushroom in the final section leading to the canopy to force the player to not double trigger the canopy parallax trigger and break the parallax transition

• Cave Zone
  • Completed Cave Zone level design 
  • Completed final art assets for all of the Cave Zone
  • Created and implemented Cave Zone parallax background
    • Added triggers to initiate and remove parallax when entering and exiting the cave

• Mountain Zone
  • Adjusted platform and stalactite/mite location to make the zone marginally less risky
    
  • Added "Mountain" asset to act as a barrier to stop the player from exiting the games bounds and spruce up the area a little bit
  • Added cliff exiting Cave Zone to act as a trigger zone to swap the cave parallax off incase player falls and has to redo the cave section
  • Added and implemented Mountain Zone parallax
    • Added vertical movement trigger to remove the mountain parallax when the player falls from the zone back towards the canopy
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• Castle Zone
  • Finished Level design and adjusted the placement of some platforms and "no grapple" objects
    • Decided to use metal as a "no grapple" object for the castle/tower zone
  • Created and implemented all art assets for the zone
    • Flags
    • Brick walls
    • Tower Background
    • Spikes
    • Metal Objects/Walls
  • This zone still needs a lot of testing, I really like how it turned out but since no one has tested it yet I'm not sure how difficult it will be to navigate
  • Heavy emphasis on choosing the right pathing - it is sort of designed to challenge players to explore how to move through the space in order to progress. I wouldn't call it puzzling but it is less obvious how to move through the space.
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Art Assets:

• Cave Parallax
  • 4 Layers 
• Mountain Parallax
  • 4 Layers
• Cave Entrance/Exit Pillar
• Mountain Boundary
• Thorn Panels
• Castle brick, Brick Cornice, Flags(temp), and Wall Spikes
• Metal Block
• Tower Background

Moving Forward:

• Sky Zone grayboxing
  • Final Sky Zone
• UI rework

  
  

  • Better design
  • SFX
• Audio rework
• Player VFX
• Main Menu Art
• Opening Cutscene
• NPC's
  • 3-5 NPC's with tips and tricks when approaching areas that are a little bit harder to figure out
  • Opportunity for me to inject more flavor and personality
• Comprehensive Beta
• MAYBE

  
  

  • Player Animations
  • Mobile Controls/Release
  • Stand alone level/challenge mode
  • Leaderboards