Hello everyone and welcome to new readers ! 

This is my second post for Snowball Battle ! 

Since the last post, I could work on different details on my game and I did my first playtest to have feedbacks on my prototype. It was very interesting and exciting to see people play at my game ! I integrated new features and corrected some bugs that I didn't notice (It is hard to play mulltiplayer-game alone :') ! )

During January and beginning of February, I especially worked on environnement, UI and polish !  

I. Creation of the environment

I spent a lot of time on blender to model several elements like houses, barriers, bucket and its support. I integrated all of them in my game. There are some elements to add to refine environnement but I still think of it ! 

Moreover I worked on the snow on the ground and also in the air (with particul). I have never used terrain component in Unity. It was a discovery for me and I had some problem with shadow in URP mode. After lot of research to understand what was the probiem (and hair pulling!) , I modeled snow ground like I wanted ! I also added snow in buckets for better feedbacks.

I added some animations for wheelbarrows and smoke particul for theirs trails to make theirs movements more realistic. To improve feedbacks, I created snow and white smoke effect when a snowball hits a wheelbarrow.   

And to finish, I put more lights in the scene ! 

II. Lot of works on User Interface (UI) ! 

My second big job was to improve and  add UI elements for the understanding of the party. With this part, I had some trouble to have ideas for UI. I understood the difficulties that UI Designers can have. For people who are interested, I used Photoshop for this part. 

First of all, I refined the UI scoring . It was only number at the beginning and it was not very beautiful... So I designed simple gauge for each team knows its progress during the party (and a kind of "bell" to announce victory !). It's a little detail, but like the timer was near I changed its font too. 

Then, I modified HUD close to the player. There was already HUD for gauge of rotations and for the stock of snow nevertheless I disliked them. I looked different games to inspire me before create current HUD. So I change the UI for the stock of snow, rotations and the logo to notice the lack of snows.  After that, I also changed arrows which indicate the power of a launch (on the ground).

After that, I designed UI for Battle royal mode and for the victory screen. For my first devlog, when the timer was finished there was not indication to inform player that the Battle royal mode began. So it was very important to show some flashy thing  on the screen for that ! (I will not be near each player to say "BATTLE ROYAL" !). For the victory screen, it was more difficult to find idea. I am not very skill to create complicated UI. I had lot of ideas but it was too difficult for my level. So I drew and animated something simple and I hope It will do the job ! 

Last detail ! My sister said that it was good to add number above wheelbarrow to know how much points gain the player. I disabled this during the playtest because it was not beautiful to see. I redesigned them too for the new version ! 

III. Modification and others

After my playtest, I had some somes advice to improve my game. I decided to integrate some of them ! For example, there are consequences when a player is hit by a snowball. I was too nice and put malus not enough disadvantageous :') ... Now players lose snow and all his gauge of rotations ! Furthermore now, when a player is hit, he has to click repeatedly on a button to move again (I have UI for that too!)

For the Battle mode, I tried different things to highlight the target to knock down. I have even try to write shader ! Finally, I created 3D crown which floats above the target, it was more efficient to understand the situation. 

And to finish, I corrected material for dash trail behind the player. (It was pink bug for unity user). 

And this is a list of bugs corrected : 

• Battle royal mode which doesn't lauch in some case
• Work on respawn positions of snow heaps 
• Collision between 2 wheelbarrows which make them flying
• Correction of different bugs with player animations
• Debug of player blocking  during creation of snow ball 
• Snowballs which disapear in the air
• Debug of shadows on the snow ground with URP mode

 IV. And Now ? 

I can FINALLY work on the design of the menu. I think I will look at different games to create my menus as for UI. For who knows, I watch videos of Nico on Youtube and for the moment I think make menu like him... To see ! 

After, I have to work on different aspect to refine some parts but I keep the secret about this for next devlogs :) ! 

Thank you for everyone who has read all my devlog ! Don't hesitate to write comments bellow !  

(Nico's channel : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi5smbHZaDuX9kpDFMUMNpw)