Welcome back to the 5th dev blog for parasitic. We will be showing changes made to the game based on feedback from the playtest we have just conducted. Before that, I will go over some of the work each team has done and the reasons why we wanted it that way. We are very close to the end I hope this can give some insight into that.

Starting off with the programming almost all the work this team has done was based on the feedback but I want to talk about that later so the things not directly related to feedback. Implementing particle systems and animations are the main things this team did that we really needed to have the player see what they were doing while playing the game so adding all the particles are teams have been working on adds more immersion into the world. Another thing that was added was having the player unit display above the enemy to show who they are targeting this was added in an effort to allow the players to strategize more as when not being given the information they need it is hard to make a plan for the next turn. All the things that this team is doing is to enhance the player experience.

Level Design has been going strong with their levels all being almost 100% playable. With all the annotation done its full speed ahead on populating the level with the current assets and playtesting to make sure that the theme of each level comes through with gameplay. Another thing we are doing a second pass on is the lighting in the game I was not super happy with how some of the first levels came out but I knew at the time we just needed them done, now that we are close to the end but have time I have having them go much more in-depth in the lighting of the game so each area in the game feels different. 

Our 3D modeling team has really been working them selfs to the bone and with that, we only need a few more assets until we have every single asset made. With this, we are transitioning this team into the audio design team as this is a part of the game we really had not been looking at yet. With them now looking into, recording, and finding audio clips it will allow them to grow in a new way with their art skills and help them be a more rounded individual in the workplace. The only thing I have asked them when it comes to the audio is that it needs to be in the same style as the art of the game.

Ok, now it is time to talk about the feedback for the game. The first key point we looked at was is each level too long, overwhelmingly yes so we have made a few changes to the game to make it go faster. The main one to point out is that now when you are no longer in combat you can move double what is normal. This will allow people to explore more of the world while also allowing the player to take each encounter with more strategy as it takes a lot less time to set up for each fight. The next key point we tested for was how cluttered did the UI feel and again this was WAY too cluttered having all the enemy and player health bars above the heads of each unit made the gameplay a nightmare. So we did a few things to change this Above you can see the new layout of the UI by moving the player heath over it make it easier to see around them. We also hid enemy health unless you put your mouse cursor over them or during key moments in combat. We also changed the hitbox of each unit from a cube to a capsule and added a small cube at the base. The reason for this was player selection felt bad and we needed to make it better so changing the hitboxes of the units make the gameplay more smooth. The tutorial received a lot of feedback as well as many felt it had the right Idea of teaching the mechanics but overall felt very cluttered because of the walls. We took a second look at this and removed a lot of the walls that make it feel cluttered now the player has much more freedom without limiting the core aspect of what we wanted to teach. 

Overall the game is getting close to the end and it seems like we will be finishing right on time. For the programming team, it really is just polished at this point as we have all the main features completed. Level design is just waiting on the last few assets and they should be all done. All that is really left is to make the game sound as complete as it plays. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog see you in two weeks for the next one!