I was never able to get my project as far as I had hoped to, so with the positive feedback I’m eternally grateful for by those who have tried what I was able to accomplish and submit for the LD48 Jam, I have continued forward with development for a Post-Compo release.

Above you can see me experimenting with the latest addition-the elemental effects your weapon will be able to gain through the destruction of boxes dropped by mini-bosses (the larger enemies seen). It’s not actually effecting anything yet, but I’m really happy with its implementation and the visual representation.
Your weapons attack will leave a trail based on what elements it has gained and to what degree, and crystals of each element will appear on your head-the slower they spin the less time left before its effect disappears.
A fun note-something I often hear is ‘I wish the enemies would be damaged by their attacks as well’, so a fun quirk I’ve kept is that while enemies won’t cast effects on each other for balancing purposes and to keep the experience fun, I have made it so they still deal damage-at 10%, and knockback. So it keeps all the fun of knowing they are being damaged without poorly effecting the experience or balance (having the mini-boss wipe out its minions before you even attack isn’t the best haha).

Other things I’ve changed/added since the competition.

• A lot of refining of the satisfaction of dealing and receiving damage along with more visual recognition (The sounds, color tint that builds up with consecutive hits-red for normal hits/yellow critical hits, and knockback).
• Background music from our music artist Kevin Green (heard in the video above).
• Refinement of attack mechanics (the orb on the left/right of your characters head shows your left/right mouse button attacks charge), the left attack continues to get faster as it is held-when the left orb is empty you can only swing once consecutively, the right-attack requires an initial cost and auto-casts when the orb is emptied-it also has twice the chance to deal a critical hit.
• Some noteworthy quirks with the elements-you’ll gain them separately for your left/right attack depending on which attack you break open the box with, and upon each swing you’ll have a ‘chance’ to cast any element you have up to its level (nothing is guaranteed). This keeps your normal attacks valuable and each swing playing a vital part while balancing out the experience (and if you manage to get away from an enemy after one swing you might escape the full wrath of their elemental damage too). It really expands the experience in a fun way instead of the traditional mechanics for this.

I hope you enjoy what you see in the video and look forward to more progress on this, hoping to complete it for a release soon after the Ludum Dare judging is finished.

Tags: jam, LD30, post-compo