Snowballing v.0.2.0-alpha

Summary

Welcome to the new alpha release of Snowballing! This version brings significant improvements, new features, and bug fixes to enhance your gameplay experience. Here are the highlights of this update:

Changes by Area

Art

• New Enemy Sprite
• Animation for Enemy 1
• Animation for Enemy 2
• Additional Enemy Animations
• Wall Tiles and Snowed Wall Tiles
• Erasmus Void Column Shader
• Snowdawn Ability Sprite
• Voidbat Sprites and Animation
• new Particles for Snowy
• New line2D effects for phantom demons along with animations

Producing

• Creation of the Alpha Release on GitHub
• Test Environment Setup
• Narrative Task Completion
• Export Templates Configuration

Programming

• Terrain modifiers for snow / ice on acceleration
• Resolved “freeze” issue in procedural generation - Loading screen implemented
• Basic AI for Enemy
• Polished Meta-Progression System
• Save and Load System for Meta Progression
• Snowdawn Ability In-Game Configuration
• Voidbat New Enemy Implementation
• New Tier2 Phantom Enemy implementation
• New particle system for Player
• Integrated Navigation with Velocity Component on basic enemy
• Bug Fix: Vignette not resetting after quit/defeat/victory
• Bug Fix: Invisible collision damaging player at 0,0 map coordinate
• Bug Fix: Tiles from ice overriding acceleration from main center building on snowfield

Music & SFX

• New SFX for environment Snowstorm ambience on snowfields
• New SFX for Wizard and Phantom Monsters

Mixed

• Milestone: Implementing and testing all sprites and animations
• Milestone: Ensuring AI functionalities and fixing critical bugs
• Milestone: Setting up a save/load system and configuring abilities
• Milestone: Completing and polishing the narrative and meta-progression features

Resolved Bugs

• Enemies getting stuck in walls when spawning sometimes
• Audio distortion and crackling noises (only Web exports currently present audio artifacts due to framerate dependency on single-thread web exports). Apparently this will be solved in godot 4.3 version
• Orphan Objects from Ice Daggers
• Pulse Ability collision not syncing with sprite animation
• Vignette not resetting after quit/defeat/victory bug
• Invisible collision damaging player at 0,0 map coordinate
• Tiles from ice overriding acceleration from main center building on snowfield

Ongoing and Upcoming Tasks

To-Do and Ongoing

• Team Meetings - SDLC - Alpha
• Enhance Enemy AI - Finite State Machine
• Integrate Navigation with Velocity Component on all entities
• Component for Movement Resources
• Snowball Ability
• Recolor Mini Folks Demons
• Erasmus Controller
• Final Town Menu Screen
• Options Screen in Town
• Pause Screen in Town
• Polish Scene Transitions
• Refine Meta-Progression System
• Storyboard Assembly (Visual/Musical/Programming)
• Storyboard Shots

Macro To-Do List (June 3rd, 2024 Meeting)

The Town

• Prototype: Navigable town with a custom layer, NPC interaction, placeholder structures, and a portal to Level 1.
• Ensure the town is enclosed with trees around it.

The Boss Fight (Finite State Machine)

• Integrate Navigation with Velocity Component
• Single-phase boss fight with 3 attacks:
  • Ranged attack if the player is beyond 100px
  • Astral fireball attack
  • Fireball spam attack
  • Teleport within its area to escape the player

Resource System for Gaining XP by Moving

• Implement movement-based XP multiplier and resource gain.

Complete Damage and Status System

• Close Macro - Micro Loop - Alpha 2
• Finish boss fight and town setup
• Expand meta-progression
• Refine abilities and enemies
• Balance and extend the arena beyond 5 minutes
• Enhance UI (Wireframes and new UI implementation)
• Implement resource system for XP gain by moving
• Introduce passive snowball-throwing ability
• Complete damage and status system

Future Roadmap (July 1st to October 1st, 2024 - EVA 2024)

Close by October - Alpha 3

• God rays and global lighting system
• Assets with local lighting
• Collectibles system with loot programming and town menu
• Game intro
• End-level result screen for victory/defeat
• Achievement system
• Steam page setup

Prepare for MVPV (October to December 2024)

Ready by Year-End

• NPC with dialogues in town
• New maps, elements, and bosses
• More abilities and passives
• Incremental difficulty system in level selector
• Steam achievements
• Keybindings

What’s Changed

• Create Disolve.tres by @esteban18498 in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/65
• Create Disolve.tres by @esteban18498 in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/66
• Improved options menu and confirmation window by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/67
• Improved options menu and confirmation window by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/68
• Promote accumulated changes to PD by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/69
• Updating AI Navigation and Procedural generation. by @Revvan in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/70
• Uploading changes to main branch by @Revvan in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/71
• Basic Enemy new Sprites by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/74
• Basic Enemy new Sprites by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/75
• Refactor Enemy Navigation and Velocity Components by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/76
• Refactor Enemy Navigation and Velocity Components by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/77
• Implement Global Screen Transition System, Update Main Menu Vignette and Music Player by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/78
• Implement Global Screen Transition System and Update Main Menu Vignette by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/79
• Create NPC_Test.tscn by @esteban18498 in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/80
• Create NPC_Test.tscn by @esteban18498 in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/81
• Basic Enemy Sprites added by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/82
• Basic Enemy Sprites added by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/83
• Meta Upgrade System - Part 1 by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/84
• Meta Progression System - Part 1 by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/85
• Small fixes and buff to Ice Dagger by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/86
• Small fixes and buff to Ice Dagger by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/87
• Modified Magic Pulse Abilty by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/88
• Promote new magic pulse by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/89
• Meta progression system part 2 by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/90
• Meta progression system part 2 by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/91
• Fixed Enemy bugged spawn by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/92
• Fixed Enemy Spawn Bug - Stuck in wall by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/93
• New Void Bat Enemy by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/94
• New Void Bat Enemy and tweaks by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/95
• Added new Unique Ability “Snowdawn Sword” by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/96
• Added new Unique Ability “Snowdawn Sword” by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/97
• Fix vignette not resetting after quit / defeat / victory by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/99
• Fix vignette not resetting after quit / defeat / victory by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/100
• Modified Snowdawn Sword by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/101
• Modified Snowdawn Sword by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/102
• Small art Changes by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/103
• Small art Changes by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/104
• Custom Data Layer by @Revvan in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/105
• Custom Data Layer by @Revvan in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/107
• Navigator Compontent integration by @esteban18498 in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/111
• Navigation component integrated by @esteban18498 in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/112
• Fixed aceleration and update in nav componente by @esteban18498 in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/113
• Fixed acceleration and update in nav component by @esteban18498 in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/114
• Environment Sound, New Terrain Modifiers implementation and Future Acceleration Meta Upgrade by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/115
• Environment Sound, New Terrain Modifiers implementation and Future Acceleration Meta Upgrade by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/116
• Fixed bugs everywhere by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/117
• Fixed bugs everywhere by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/118
• Added more snow by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/119
• Added new enemy type, Trail Effect Scene and UI enhancements by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/120
• Added new enemy type, Trail Effect Scene and UI enhancements by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/121
• New SFX for wizard enemy and Particles for Snowy by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/122
• New SFX for wizard enemy and Particles for Snowy by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/123
• Small fix on lifetime to particle by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/124
• Small fix on lifetime to particle effect by @zheyron in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/125

New Contributors

• @esteban18498 made their first contribution in https://github.com/Demian-7/Snowballing-Main––/pull/65