Emoji Balls
We started off by doing a design exercise, attempting to expand the '100 balls' game found on the appstore. George got started with the base game while I wrote down the MVP a version we cooked up after talking for a night. I took it a bit further and expanded to a full GDD. Here I'm adding a speed-up logic as well as defining some inner pieces for scoring and bucket upgrades.
Added in some basic scoring mechanisms and UI to show it off. Just a simple trigger volume and a timer. I'm also done with the progression innards of the emoji balls, so they can upgrade when they need to.
Some basic bucket upgrades added to the game, but nothing is hooked up to the end-of-round UI. We need to work on the logic for that soon. This build also has some new emoji displays corresponding to their accumulated value. Making some progress -- it's fun to make the balls change. It makes me want to introduce more emoji stages, like the heart emoji?!
Finished the non bucket-altering power ups. Slow (makes the belt speed up slower, but will eventually still get too fast to handle), Overflow (allows you to use all the balls from the start), and Bucket++ (which adds a 6th normal bucket). Added the Teleport bucket will teleport the balls inside it once it scores (more scoring potential). The Shrinking bucket will make all the balls that score in it smaller -- to a limit. Finally, the Holy bucket will transform the balls to the Halo emoji, and giving them an extra life. Basic particles added as well. Obviously some power ups are ridiculously OP and might even break the game but that's what this rapid prototyping/game design exploration is all about!
Added a basic game over screen -- it will show you the state of your emojis at the end, making your reward a bucket filled with happy (if you did good LOL) emojis! It makes me want to add more types so that mix can be more colorful -- maybe add the heart , devil, clown?!
Recently added a main menu screen, mainly to show a high score. Also introduced the power up selection screen in-between game rounds. All that logic has been wrapped up which I believe means the project is GDD complete! However, after playing a few rounds, I realized some of the design choices made are very questionable. Mainly the armored bucket -- it really isn't as effective as the other power-ups. There's also a problem with the Overflow power-up, because all the collisions happening are slowing the game down. Maybe I can experiment with ECS for the ball logic to keep it? That might be a cool learning experience. I want to add more emoji types and perhaps other buckets as well. Art/Sound is next, but I'm having a hard time coming up with anyone to make assets.