I added the other story elements for the stage which are the journal details and the voice lines that I recorded and edited on Audacity. The walls still have issues with being able to ramp up the player’s speed but I tried to fix it by adding more pillars/obstacles around the edges. Plugging in the dialogue for the subtitles is simple and tedious so that went by quickly.
One entrance of the mausoleum was too small. While I tried to make it slightly bigger it actually looked better to me when I made it as big as it could be. You can see a lot more in and out. It feels less enclosed and the exploration flow should be better. Also hung out with the doggy a bit.
I made some changes to the interior of the house, and how a certain trigger looks like. Simpler is usually better in my case. Added an effect to one attack of the boss that would change the color of the player’s screen. It is supposed to make it difficult for the player to see for a few seconds. Then I took a break from that to watch a short on how to self-publish a game. There were a lot of helpful tips on building a community and knowing where to reach out to. My main focus is development for now but I cannot ever forget that I will need to get better at marketing my own product.
There wasn’t a lot left to do with this fifth stage. Anything I tried to add felt like an afterthought or it didn’t belong. I thought this was going to be my most ambitious and innovative stage yet but it doesn’t appear to be. And I am okay with that. While it may feel simple on the surface this is a level where I took the most time planning instead of working on the fly. The boss transition needed a better effect so I added a simple color. I tested a lot of what could go wrong in this stage and polished it. Surely there are more I didn’t catch. But since this stage is done it’s back to doing a cycle of testing and polish on all fronts. After that, the final stage will be in the works. I’ll wait until November to start on the sixth level.
GoldenGratus Games 