During this last week, I focused a little more on the polish of core systems and mechanics. New additions were fewer, but much more impactful in my eyes. Probably the most obvious new addition, and something I'm particularly proud of, is the Mi-Go character that is now present atop the elevator contraption. He acts as the toll-collector/gatekeeper for proceeding back up to the Sothoth Inn, or further down into the Abyss. Right now, he requires a certain amount of enemies to be eliminated in order for his services to be utilized. His animation includes some slight movement and the rapid flapping of his bug-like wings (like a fly or hummingbird). The player interacts with the elevator all the same, but this is the narrative-connecting asset of the mechanic.

I sculpted him out of an assortment of 3D printable files of various insects and crustaceans. I started lopping off and combining certain physical features from each. His body, head and legs are from that of a praying mantis, and his arms and claws are from a type of crab. I shortened his body to be more vertically oriented and less spindly. I duplicated the legs and moved them around too. All the sculpting happened in an Autodesk program called MeshMixer. He was then imported to Blender to be texture painted and animated before being exported to Unity.

Some other polishing additions I had made were small particle effects or UI elements to aid in the communication of certain mechanics for the player. Our parrying mechanic has been integrated and has some sounds that pertain to when it is successful or failed against an enemy attack. I thought this definitely needed some type of visual cue to go along with it so I was able to quickly repurpose my bullet ricochet effect and color it accordingly. The red spark will fire when the parry has been failed (and will fail if used away from enemies of course) while the gold spark is slightly bigger and will fire when the parry has been successful, negating the damage dealt from the enemies' attack.

The last little addition that happened this week was some better visual signifiers for the enemies themselves and something to represent the needed count of kills to access the elevator (it was a huge pain to try and find the elevator again only to find out I needed a single additional kill or something). This improved visibility of enemies and communication of the player's current goal so much more effectively and I think these small icons are not extremely bright or intrusive in any way. The poisition of this counter might change slightly, as would the font used for the numbers.

This is the final week before another big release so we're excited to share some big improvements soon!