Stable-ish release!

 

Well - if this is as far as I manage to take it for the summer slow jam I'd be happy and proud of myself.

Still have a lot I want to add, but less that I need to fix - which is why I say that.

Managed to strike a number of things off the to-do list yesterday, though I'm still running into a few issues with the previous list, though it shouldn't detract from the overall experience.

For this release:

• Rebalanced ball probability - works well on Hard mode, but still feels off for Easy. Baby mode is basically just debug for me - and not recommended for actual gameplay.
• I'm proud of my silly little simple title screen. I'm not much of a graphics artist, and I know it doesn't hold a candle to some of the other submissions or even other items done in P8, but I'm still happy with it. I was going for an 80s arcade-y vibe ala a pacman or galaga cabinet, and feel like I've achieved that.
• Going to try to implement somethings off the feature list before the jam ends and lastly source some BG music to make things feel a little more polished.

To do:

Gameplay and UI

• Make sense of scoring - tie it into some of the additional gameplay features below
  • 10-20 points for drop
  • 100 points  / cleared ball organically (don't score wildcard balls maybe?)
  • Points for balls cleared via powerups (h-bomb, v-bomb, etc?)
• Clean up the game UI (add boundaries to left/right - or areas to select/trigger purchasable power ups noted below.)
  
• Additional Gameplay Functions?
• • Revert/Undo - costs X number of points
  • Wipe Board - costs XX number of point
  • Victory Condition?
    • Set Score to meet/beat?
    • Set number of balls in the hopper to survive?
    • True endless?
• BG Music for title/gameplay

Bugfixes

• Double check wildcard ball code/logic. Still seems it triggers on any 3 balls, not 2-of-a-kind + wildcard
  
• Seems occasionally some explosion sprites display a little off left/right where they should. Need to check that.

Future Releases if I keep at it:

In additional to fixing/implementing some of the above. I would like to:

• Add a true puzzle mode with pre-programmed puzzles and set balls in the hopper to solve - also helps explain gameplay as kinda like tutorial levels
• More clear victory conditions
• Implement a "two screen" UI where the top "screen" is the pachinko pegs, and the bottom screen is the basins - which would allow for much larger basins and more interesting gameplay.
• Add diagonal matching logic (currently only vertical/horizontal)