A new beginning

Hey everyone, tec031 here with my first official dev-log! Today I present you with: News about the project and it's future.

The journey so far

Bouncing ball originally started out as a little 3 day side project while I was visiting my home town. But after making the initial prototype and getting some positive feedback I decided I would turn this into a feature complete game.  A few iterations and updates later I had the current version on my hands.

However I realised, that for this game to become what I truly envision for it, the current codebase is simply not sufficient: A lot of hard coded stuff, poor structure decisions early on and a lack of scalability have turned this fun side project into somewhat of a headache.

Moving forward I will be remaking the entire game in a clean project with my new end-goals in mind. The codebase will be properly adjusted to allow better scalability and new content.

Code base probelms

The current codebase was initially designed for 2 abilities: Shoot and dash, as well as a singular enemy that approaches and shoots at the player. After playtesting myself I realised that the game was a bit bland with only 1 enemy type so I expanded with a small adjustment of the sniper variation, but upon adding the Rocketeer and the Charger, I foolishly copied the movement code and slapped new combat code onto it. This kind of thing happened more than once and it has become very unsightly and a pain to maintain.

A full list of the problems:

• A lot of redundant code
• Late introduction of object pooling causing issues where the projectiles and enemies were never intended to use object pools
• Late introdcution of the command pattern causing issues where not all code is compatible
• Use of the old input system, as it was quicker to implement
• The enemy manager was originally intended to spawn waves and is not meant for the new game loop
• Messy and incorrect use of game events as they were new to me at the time of creating this

tldr.: A bunch of spaghetti code has come to nip me in the bud and now I have to deal with it sooner or later

Improvements

Just a quick list of improvements:

• Easier to maintain codebase
• More modular components allowing for more features to be added
• Improved scalability
• More optimally implemented object-pooling, leading to better performance
• An improved and adjusted enemy manager

What this means for you as a player

The updated code base will mean that your gameplay experience should be smoother and cleaner compared to the current version. It will also allow me to make changes and implement new features faster and more bug free than before .

 As for a little non time stamped roadmap:

• Menu updates
  • I will be updating the menus to be more readable, have a better user experience and fixing some bugs with the displayed text
• Updated enemies
  • The Gunner will not basically crash into the player anymore
  • The Sniper will receive changes to make it more distinguishable from the gunner
  • The Rocketeer will be changed to make it more accurate
  • The Charger will get more feedback to it's current state (approaching, preparing to attack, attacking
• Enemy variants -> enemies will have a chance to spawn as a variant, gaining special effects
  • Shielded -> will have a shield that absorbs damage and regenerates after not taking damage for a while
  • Explosive -> will explode upon death damaging nearby enemies and the player
  • Mothership -> a larger version of the enemy, will spawn a number of smaller enemies upon death
• Bosses           -> high value targets that will earn you a lot of points
  • Rotor     -> a bulky and tanky enemy with shields rotating around him
  • Carrier -> a mobile carrier ship, doesn't attack you but will spawn small ships that do
• Attachments -> The player ship will be stripped of all it's current functions and split up into attachments that can be selected before a round
  • Drives (the ships propulsion method)
    • Dash drive -> rapidly propel yourself in a direction
    • Thrust drive -> a more basic forward propellant engine
    • Hook drive (still in the air if it will come) -> hook onto enemies and the environment and swing around
  • Modules (the special move of the ship, costs energy)
    • Shield module -> shield yourself from incoming damage
    • Mine module -> drop mines that will detect nearby enemies and hunt them down
    • Rocket module -> shoot out homing missiles that deal damage in an area after hitting something
  • Weapon
    • Blaster -> shoot small bullets at a fire rate
    • Shotblaster -> shoot a spread of small bullets that deal low damage individually but strike down enemies efficiently at close range
    • Railgun -> shoot a thick powerful projectile that pierces  enemies and environment, high damage but slow fire rate

Thank you!

For reading this devlog, I hope it wasn't too hard to read ;) I can't exactly tell how long this will take to get rolled out but I will be posting again as I make progress. Feel free to leave comments and feedback. I am very excited continuing work on this project and adding new features.

ps.: The game will be renamed in the near future