Reworked levels

The feedback that we received from our beta playtesting was used to guide some improvements to our levels. The feedback pushed us to rework our tutorial level and make some minor tweaks to the other levels.

Tutorial Level

• We noticed players trying to use jump more than the eating/dashing mechanic, which may be a result of playing platformer games that rely mostly on jumping. To fix this issue we teach the player how to jump after the dash mechanic to put more emphasis on dashing. Additionally, we temporarily disable the jump at the start of the tutorial so that the player is forced to make use of the dash in the beginning.
• From the playtesting, we noticed that players were finding the longer dash range mechanic difficult to execute. Previously, we had the player eat a tower grow bigger - which increases their dash range - and then had them dash to a far object. We noticed that eating the tower would sometimes cause it to collapse into their path, making it hard for them to aim past it. To fix this, we swapped the tower out for a pile of crates, which won't get in the way and can easily be shoved aside.

Level 3

• One of the things mentioned in the feedback was the collapsing staircase from level 3. When the player eats the staircase, they have no way to progress and are forced to fall off the level to restart. To fix this, we removed the floors under the stairs, making it so the player won't break the puzzle without losing the level.
• One of the collectables was also more difficult to reach than intended, so we made it a bit easier.

Added New Sound Effects

New sound effects for walking, jumping and puking are now added to the game.

Inventory UI

The inventory is now fully functional with thumbnail images for each consumed object.

Quality of Life

We made some tweaks to the physics to prevent players from sliding down stairs or off ledges. This should make it a bit easier to aim at stuff far away.

We changed the rate of puke charging, so it now gives the player more time to puke objects out nearby.

We added some common platformer quality of life features, specifically an input buffer so you will still jump if you press the button slightly too early, and coyote time, so you will be able to just for a short period after leaving a platform in case you press jump slightly too late. We also decided to remove our variable jump height, as the jump is not very high anyways and it led to confusion for some players.

We have also changed our dash to make it feel much faster by making most of the movement come at the start.

Challenges and Obstacles

The biggest challenge this week was reworking some of the physics without introducing any bugs. For the sliding fixes, we noticed that it sometimes broke the jump or allowed for double jumps. This required multiple revisions to get right.