Powerups and Play-testing!

Greetings to all our new and returning readers! Welcome to the 4th, weekly Geekabye Games Devlog! In this Devlog edition we will be talking about the new powerup system as well as some of our recent Kasplat play-testing experiences and how the game has changed and improved as a result. Before we get into it, as always make sure to check out our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to follow the development of Kasplat and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more video updates and gameplay!

Last week we spoke briefly about the new powerup system we were working on. This week we are excited to share some of the details with you! During the game, glittering star-shaped balloons will intermittently fly across the screen. When popped, the star balloons explode in a ball off dazzling sparkles, which is cool... but we know what you really care about is the awesome random powerup rewards they grant.

The powerups appear as an icon in the bottom corner of the screen and can be tapped at any time to apply the effect of the powerup and give the player a big advantage for a limited time. Powerups range from the classics like Slow-mo and Double Points, to the less usual characters like Big Balloons and the ever amusing Paintball Gun. Here is just a taste of some of the powerups we have in store, with lots more to come!

We are super excited to share with you all a first-glimpse gameplay video detailing how powerups are attained and used in Kasplat. Make sure to let us know what you think!

In other news, this week we were lucky enough to have some local Brisbane devs try out Kasplat and we got some brilliant feedback. Over-all, people seemed to really like the game and had a lot of balloon-bursting fun, but as always in the early stages of development, there were things pointed out to us that could be improved. The biggest issue during testing was that first time users didn't immediately realise that they had a limit on the number of available darts, nor did they notice that they were suffering a dart penalty when they missed a balloon. This meant that when the Game Over screen appeared, players were left wondering why they lost. This can't do!

To address these issues, when the game starts an animation now plays that shows the users dart pool "spin up" from 0 to 30, this helps attract the players attention to the dart limit. Secondly we made the UI pop-up that appears when you miss a dart more prominent and also added the word "MISS" to the icon. Finally we changed the game over screen to now say "OUT OF DARTS!" when the player loses. We can't wait to get these new changes into play testing to see how the player's experience is affected. Check out the screenshots below to see some of these adjustments in action.