Hello everyone, and welcome to a new devlog for Snow battle ! (I think this sentence would be my opening line for the future :'))

With this devlog, I am near to the end more than never ! I could add somethings that I thought since the first prototype of my game. I won't lie, I have tears in my eyes ! Finally, all actions of the gameplay are presents in the current version of Snowball Battle. 

Finish with suspens, let's get in the heart of the matter, let's talk about creation of bonus and malus ! 

I. Management of boxes 

As I said in my last devlog, I wanted to add bonus-malus. From now, I wil say 'items' to talk about them. In my game, players will be able to see them in a box. When they collide with one of the box, they receive an item.  I created all box system with their respawns, animations and distribution according to the two teams. This part was very important because it is the base of creation of all items, and bad management can be very frustrating for a player. 

According to the game mode and special items, their distribution is different. Some items would be very stressful, if it was possible to have several of it in the game. Other will be useless if they respawn at multiple times ! 

II. Creations of items

I decided to create 10 types of items. I won't reveal all of them since I want to keep surprise for players, but I am going explain some of them. 

There are bonus which are here to help players. Some are more simple like "Max rotation" which give the possibility to launch a big ball immediatly or "Wall" which brings snow wall to protect players and wheelbarrows (they are destructible). Other are more complexe like "Sacrifice". With it, player who picks "sacrifice" become a shield for wheelbarrows. If he is hit by a snowball, he will get points of this snowball. So try to intercept the bigger snowball for more points !

Like I said before, there are also malus. You have to pick them in boxes too. When you get a malus,  you can throw snowball which contains malus inside. If a player is touched by this snowball then malus is activated on this player. Some malus are more kind like "No dash" which blocked dash for an amount of time. But you will think that I am a sadistic, when you receive "Prisoner" malus. I won't say more about it except the fact to avoid to have the malus at the end of its timer :') ! 

For others items, I hope you will have fun with them ! 

'Sacrifice' bonus

'Wall' bonus

III. Others creations linked to items

With the arrival of items, I had to add others detail on the HUD for the understanding of players. There are 2 types of circle at the bottom of the screen. One big circle which shows items earned by players, and a little one which shows if a player has a malus. Moreover, in the case of malus, you can see a dial bellow the player. This dial gives the duration of a malus.

During this step, I learned to use some basis of Procreate software. Thanks to that I could create logos of all items. I tried to imagine logos explicit, I hope it won't be hard to understand. You will see these logos on HUD and also when a player takes a box !

Logo of 'No Dash' malus =>             

Logo of 'Prisoner' bonus => 

And finally, it is just a detail, but the trail of a snowball changes if a malus is in the ball. There were lots of little changes to improve feedbacks of players ! 

IV. Polish of Snowball System

This part was not a big part of my work, but it is important to explain it quickly. I changed  different details on gauge of snowball like colors of size indication for a ball and add new animations for the evolution of the gauge (it is useful for items).  But the most important it is when 2 snowballs collide and explode ! This is effect is cool to see for me, so I wanted to write this here ! >.<

V. Modification of menus

For the last devlog, I focused on the creation of menu. I had to made it quickly to let the player launch a game. I couldn't add different effects to have something more alive. And, especially, I drew different elements in the menus quickly (or made a 3D scene). So this time, I wanted to have 2D graphics more profesionnel. So, I drew head of players again in the menu for add controlers (with procreate). I also replaced 3D characters in the main menu by drawings. For the moment, only one drawing is finished. The rest have to be colored.  With the advice of my sister, I created an environnement in these drawings because main menu seemed to be... empty. 

Furthermore, I wanted to add animations on menus, always with the goal to have something more alive and more attractive to look. In the main menu, I made flakes with rotation animations (and not stretched this time!). In other menus, I changed the background. It was ok but not enough for me. Now you will see snow falling. For people who is interested, it is a parallax scrolling. This kind of scrolling gives an effect more naturel (and subjectively is more beautiful !).

Menu for add controlers

I also made a big change in the main menu... I added credits. Yes. CREDITS ! It is the sign of the end of a project, 

And to finish this part, I added the control of menu with gamepad/keyboard. You can navigate between all menus (main menus, menus for config a game, menus for add controlers, end game menu and menu for pause) with gamepad. Unfortunately, it is not possible to control with mouse now. I was a struggle to developp these functionnalities. I didn't expect this difficulty... But it is done ! 

VI. Others modifications

These are last modifications that I am going to write, however there are important. For the development of the prototype of snowball, I had the chance to work with a musician and she made a music for me. I wanted to keep this music for the final version of my game, so I added it. For the moment I won't say her name.  But of course users will be able to see it in the credits of the game and in the page of the game on itch.io!   

Moreover, I created other elements of environment in blender. Thanks to that, I put all elements of environment in the game and developed interaction between these elements and snowballs. 

These 2 last points are very important for atmosphere of the game ! 

VII. And now ?

For this devlog. I have done a lot of things. It was hard to sum up everything and I had to remove several points. I hope it was not too long and too hard to read ! 

Right now ! There is still a big part to do : sounds and the last music. Stuyding other game helped me to be aware of significance of sounds in a game. Not only for the atmosphere but also to deliver information. There are also other tasks to do like create tutorial (yes, at the beginning I didn't think my game was hard to understand but play test showed me the opposite). But it's almost the end of the project, and think of that boost my motivation ! :) 

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