ART

This week was mainly focused on improving readability, visual hierarchy and making the style of the game a bit more coherent. That being said, the main focus was to finalize the look of the interactibles / pickups and the interactive zones of the game. Portals, hovering areas and acceleration zones have their own cool visuals, jam is looking sweet and sticky and we also have new jumping pads!

Would you ever imagine being chased to death by a big ball of yarn? Well now you do. This week we also implemented the visuals for the wall of death;

Smoother Starts and Smarter Tools

We've added several new tools for our artists to help fine-tune race dynamics and player experience. Notably, we've introduced camera zones and death wall zones, which give us better control over pacing during races. This allows for smoother difficulty scaling and gives players more time to adjust to the mechanics as they play.

On the backend, we addressed some issues with our folder structure. Cleaning this up now prevents potential complications later and makes the project more maintainable going forward.

We've also begun implementing RFX logic on some items. While it's still in progress, having the groundwork in place puts us ahead for future development on effects and responsiveness.

Previously, races would begin immediately after a countdown. To improve onboarding, we've now added a lobby within the race scene. This gives new players a chance to get familiar with the controls and game mechanics before the action begins.

SOUND

We've given our game a complete audio overhaul today! The UI now feels responsive with satisfying click and hover sounds across all menus. We've added distinctive background music for the main menu, victory screen, and game over screen to set the right mood for players.

In gameplay, winning and losing now have proper audio payoff with victory fanfares and defeat sounds that match the emotional moments. The special zones around the map (acceleration, deceleration, and fly zones) now give audio feedback when players enter them, making their effects more intuitive.

We also fixed the annoying problem of sounds overlapping when multiple players hit a zone at once - now the sound plays only when the first player enters and smoothly fades out when everyone leaves. This makes the audio much cleaner in our 4-player matches where things can get chaotic.

Overall, these sound improvements make the game feel more polished and responsive, with audio that properly reinforces the gameplay.