Cax - Final elements
As the deadline approaches fast, I had to commit myself to finishing the game much harder than earlier. And as a result, I have made great progress. You can check my progress of the near-complete Cax in the embedded video recording below.
(Watch in 720p or 1080p for high frame rate (50fps))
In this video, you can clearly see that a lot has been added or improved to the game. There are dialogue cut-scenes where Cax himself is communicating to the player, a second level, and a revamped main menu with a game logo I created in Photoshop, credits and a full screen toggle. The timer that is shown at the end of the level is fixed, and pause/game over text is displayed when appropriate.
Additionally, the outlines of the backgrounds have been removed to give the game a more stylized look, and a new enemy has been created. Sure it's nearly identical to the black one and basically a re-colour, but unlike the black ones that fire projectiles, the white ones don't fire, though they certainly move faster in compensation. This is done to give the combat more of a variety. Both enemy sprites have been animated too, along with a new projectile sprite.
The opening door mechanic has been completed. In order to open one, the player must throw the boomerang at the button to activate. The sprites are basic, but do give a good visual representation of what they are.
Mine traps have also been created. I accomplished the explosion effects by creating a glowing red sprite, and then scaling up the image while reducing the alpha opacity.
Using GIMP, I have enhanced many of the sprites. Many of them have a glowing neon effect to give them more life and depth rather than looking just flat. The coins and weapon power-ups now have flipping animations, which I did by writing code to change their x-scale.
All of the 16-bit sounds effects were created by me using ChipTone, a free sound effect generating tool. Music will be present in the game despite it not being featured in the video. Since I did not have time to compose my own music, I obtain a royalty-free song by the king of royalty-free music, Kevin MacLeod from his website Incompetech. The song I chose, "Freddy's Menagerie" , is a nice fit for the tone and style of my game. It will be featured in the games's final release.
And finally there's the artistic Photoshop painting I created for the game's end screen. I also used this as part of my visual game treatment slides.
Now that the game is nearly complete and bug-free, all I gotta do is create a trailer, which is coming together pretty nicely. The trailer and the game executable will be up eventually!
