Devblog #4 - UI and Visuals

In my latest update to things I created a minimal set of UI. I created a main menu that will allow you to choose which enemy you want to fight(currently only one option). There are also health bars for the player and the boss, with small lines splitting up the boss's health bar for the 4 phases it goes through. There is also a screen that pops up when the player loses/wins with a restart and back to menu button. I am planning to add a timer and to save your best time so you can try to beat that on subsequent runs.

After finishing up with the basics of the UI I needed to approach the visual elements of the game. Starting with the player themselves, I decided to go with assets from the internet instead of modelling and animating the player as that would take far too long and wouldn't end up being too great. I managed to find something that fit my theme, but it does need some animation from my end for shooting and blocking but that should be fairly simple to get done. 

I did some playtesting with the current iteration of the project where my friends did a couple of runs, and one of the recurring things that was pointed  out was that there was a lack of feedback for whenever the player got hit. This led me to implement a form of hit indicator in which the edges of the screen flash red any time you take damage. 

I'm currently looking into ways to theme the arena around the world I'm trying to build. The current theme/world/story is that this is set in some future dystopia where people are fighting these death machines for the entertainment of the incredibly wealthy, just in the hopes of winning and making some money. To enforce the arena theme of things I do plan on introducing some crowd cheering sounds throughout the fight that spike at certain points(damage taken, phase transitions, etc.).  Going to also make the ground look metallic, bloodied, and battered to further that vibe.