Introduction

Hi everyone!

After going over a few ideas and getting some super helpful feedback from the community, I'm excited to share that I'm now officially working on v2.0. 

Each time I get to work on this version, I'll be sharing with you all the progress I make right here, so if you're curious just follow my page, get comfortable and enjoy the updates.

Day #1

Today I didn't have too much time but I insisted to get at least one thing done, and that thing is ammo limitation mechanic. This mechanic basically consisted of 2 things I implemented in the game:

• Ammo Bar
• Ammo Pack Pickups

The work on this didn't take too long since the way the ammo bar works is pretty similar to the health bar. Anyway, as simple as it was, I think this already adds an interesting challenge to the game. After all, every shot counts!

Day #2

Seems like today I had a bit more time so I decided to focus on adding some of the stuff I didn't have enough time for during the jam itself. Here's what I got done:

• Ammo Spawning
• Player Controls UI
• Platform can be reached by jumping through bottom
• Shooting constantly by holding down the shooting button
• Screen shake when asteroid hits the surface

*Thank you  KANAMedia for suggesting item 3 and 4. It's a simple solution with a very significant impact to gameplay!

I think the work rhythm today was really good. Didn't come across anything too complicated and I was happy to get so many things out of the way. I'm super excited for the next time I have a moment to work on this project because more new and cool  mechanics are on the way :)

Day #3

Today I felt like adding a bit more touch ups to enemy as well as work on a new mechanics:

• Enemy push back on hit
• Super ammo bar
• Supershot projectile

I feel like today went pretty smoothly. I felt very productive with everything I did and didn't really hit any setbacks. There's still some more refining work to be done but overall I'm pretty happy with what I've got here so far.

Day #4

Started the day without really knowing how long it would take to finish things but I did have a task list I was aiming to complete. Here's what I managed to check off that list:

• Screen shake when regular projectiles hit enemies
• Screen shake when player finishes a super shot charge.
• Screen shake when super shot hits enemies.
• Improving positioning and effects of supershot
• Adding a charge functionality to super shot button so it doesn't shoot out right away. 
• Improved control keys ui + animation

The first few tasks were pretty simple and quick to complete. However, I did end up spending most of my time on the super shot charging mechanism. Animations were never my strong suit so I kind of struggled with the solution for this at first.  But I did figure it out eventually so I was happy finish this day with a victory.

Day #5

Today my only goal was to add a new mechanic to the game - player forcefield. The plan was to just get started with something basic and later on, add improvements on top of it. 

While working on this part I stumbled upon a few bugs. To stay focused though, I just decided to handle it at a later time and continued with my work on the new mechanic. I feel like it helped me finish whatever I set out to complete so this was a good call.

Day #6

Today I got some nice work done with the game. I dare even say that I'm almost done with v2! Here's the stuff I added:

• Shield pick up energy bar
• Shield pickup spawning
• Poison hazard that infects(heals) enemies or hurts player on hit
• Poison hazard effect on hit

So yeah, very fruitful day :) Now it's time to polish some stuff, add some missing animations and work on releasing the v2.0!

Day #7

Didn't do too much today but I felt like checking one more item off the list so I just worked on the ammo bar animations. Didn't take a lot of time and it's rather simple, but I feel like it's already making a huge difference :)

Day #8

Today I focused on refining some of the existing features to make things clearer for the player as the game progresses. So I added some effects to the ammo bar when the super ammo is ready for use. I also added a starting countdown and a difficulty display to let the player know things are heating up ;)

 

Day #9

Another day of game polishing is done and I gotta say things are feeling way better. As you can probably see below, I added some knockback when shield is hit to give it a bit more presence. I also added some character shaking and particle effects to make the super shot feel more powerful.

Stay tuned for more stuff. V2.0 is nearly done!

Day #10

I didn't write here in a while so I thought it's time to share with you some news about v2.0 of Zombie Friends.

I'm saying it's day #10 but in the past week or so I actually worked on the final refinements of the game any chance I had, so what I'm sharing with you today is the sum of all the things I managed to complete so far.

First and foremost I did some fine-tuning to the difficulty progression so things happen more gradually than before. 

I also recorded some simple sound effects to go with the new mechanisms I added  in this version and I finished implementing all of them inside Unity.  During my work on v2 I came across some bugs so now I'm also working on fixing all of them. I actually managed to fix the most critical bugs today so I feel pretty good :)

That's pretty much it for all the latest things I've been working on. I did originally plan to add more stuff but I feel like this has been dragging on longer than it needed to. Maybe I'll continue working on the game if I feel like it's going somewhere but for now I think it's time to do the final push and release the game in the coming week or so.