THE BUILD: https://we.tl/t-P0X9XD98B6

Hi there!

It's us again, the Fare Exchange development team. 

This week the polish sprint has started. The sprint is shorter than we had thought in the beginning of our project but we’re gonna try and do our best to get the most essential work done in the time we have.

Art

This week we worked on polishing and with that we focused on really improving the player feedback.

Our boat now flashes when the enemies damage it so even if you are not looking at the exact place where a hit takes place, you still get notified that “Oh no! The boat got attacked!”. 

On top of the fire “poof-ing” up when you add fuel, the extra health it gives is now also visually represented. A glowing trail goes from the fire directly towards the health bar while it swells up before going back to normal. For this our health bar now also is the same colour scheme as the fire to, again, indicate that they are connected.

When the boat is on low health, there is now a full screen visual indication. The edges of the screen will start to flash in black swirls (same style as our fail screen) and the health bar will start to flash as well to hopefully let the player know that it’s about the low health. The health bar also has a little stripe representing the threshold for “low health”.

Programming

Hey everyone!

We've been busy fine-tuning the numbers behind the scenes to make sure everything feels just right. From tweaking animation speeds to adjusting collision detection, we're all about making your gameplay experience smoother and more enjoyable.

One of the big focuses this week has been fixing collisions, especially with task spawning. We're happy to report that tasks no longer spawn on top of the brazier (because that was getting a bit toasty). However, repair holes can still appear on player spawn points. We're still debating whether this adds a fun challenge or if it's just plain annoying. On one hand, it might encourage players to help each other more, but on the other hand, it could also make things frustrating. Let us know what you think!

Controller time! We’re excited to announce that all our UI is now fully navigable with a controller! 🎮 Every button prompt is in place, so you know exactly which button to press. No more mouse and keyboard action—grab your controllers, everyone, and get ready for a more immersive experience.

Need a break? We’ve got you covered! We've added a pause screen during the game, so you can take a breather or even quit mid-game if you need to. It's a small addition, but we think it’s pretty revolutionary. 😉

We’re constantly working on new features and improvements based on your feedback. Keep those suggestions coming!

Sound

We added fixing sounds to our repair animation.

 We changed the music to something a bit more darker to balance the comedy of the sound effects.

We also incorporated some flashing, washed, and airy sound effects into our particle system that fills the health of the boat.

We modified the skeleton's footsteps sound to feel more bouncy on the skeleton body, and reused the previous grunt as an emote when it dies. Additionally, we added a shiny sound effect for the sword to alert players when an attack is imminent.

There are also distinctive sounds for when players win or lose.

Regarding our off-screen events, we can hear more creatures in the distance (some threatening and others not so much), funny ghosts, theremins, and detuned instruments.

What's next?

Until next week! 

The Fare Exchange Team