I've slowly continued making maps, and I finally arrived at level 27.

This is a very special level because... in the original version, it was the hardest one, and only because I honestly think it was too obtuse. In my recent playthrough of the old game, I had difficulties finding out what exactly I needed to do, and then there was harsh timing to win it with some RNG thrown in.

In the dialogue leading up to level 27, Space Director Adalina says that you need to infiltrate the enemy base. Level 27 didn't really feel like that, it was just some random stuff reused from previous levels and that was that.

So I thought about it for a while, and finally got an idea. I wanted to give the player a bunch of shields and then let them fly through the enemy defense lines. That sounded fun! I had an additional idea for the surroundings too, which felt kind of like an espionage setting (evade a moving drone that switches lanes on long paths). I added more repair seekers to send over the enemy lines, and I think the level works a lot better now.

After remaking levels 27 and 28, I wanted to implement glow / bloom. With the recent Dispelled video, I've gained enough experience with the All In 1 Sprite Shader to give it another go. My main issue with a previous attempt was that it seemed like the sprite shader didn't work in prefabs. Turns out I simply needed to create a new material with it and apply that to prefabs.

Looking at the official documentation this time, I started adding the Universal Render Pipeline again.

And BOOM-

We have bloom! ... That's a bit much, but yeah. Now I can play around with lots more post-processing effects. Hehehe.

It will definitely have an impact on performance, especially on older hardware, so I won't overdo it. And there will be an option to turn it off. But for now I'm happy with how it makes the enemy drones look a bit more menacing.

Level 29 also received a complete do-over. Previously it felt a bit too random, Neek could walk into a trap really easily and the player wouldn't even have time to capture him in time. Now it's a bit less random and requires a bit more attention from the player.

And finally, I reached the last cutscene and level!

The credits still need a lot of attention, and the cutscenes in general need adjustments (a smaller dialogue box), but... for now I'm happy that the game is playable from beginning to end.

So... what now? Well, fellow travellers, it's...

ROADMAP TIME!

First, let's look at what we've accomplished: ✨

• Set up the project based on Catty & Batty to save lots of development time
• Ported all game mechanics (grid turning ability, enemies, crystal collection, shields, player movement, winning conditions, etc.)
• Added new character portraits for Neek and Adalina
• Added new background images
• Added sounds and music from the old game in high quality
• Changed colors based on a new color palette (i.e. enemies are now red instead of blue)
• Added a targeting trail to help visualize the path of your seekers
• Updated certain graphics (i.e. seeker eyes) and added post-processing effects
• Added new UI for game over / winning screens (will be used for other menus too)
• Imported dialogue for all 30 cutscenes using the I2Localization plugin (so it's already ready for translation)
• Remade all 30 levels
• Created a Steam page and a website 

So far, I have spent 142 hours on this game spread over 49 days, and in total I've made 60 git commits.

Now let's look into the future:

• Overworld / Level Selection: The old game used a simple level selection screen that I want to add as well. Should be straight forward.
• Pause Menu / Options Menu: I'm still not sure whether I will be re-using the old Catty & Batty options menu or write it again, this time not making it visually in the editor, but purely by code with a bunch of prefabs. I could still re-use a lot of the old code, but I think it's better for Turnament to do it like this. We shall see.
• New splash screen
• Credits (with Patron names!)
• Upgrade / add sounds
• Add more music
• Betatest (in Discord)
• Achievements
• Translations
• Update Steam page with new screenshots and new trailer

And that's the road ahead! Things will slow down a bit with Desdemona and Still Leben coming up, but I think the game is now in a very good place and its future is looking bright.

Hope you are as excited as I am!

To be continued... 💎