Hey all,

I’m trying out a new type of blog post today for Samurai Showdown where I try to keep things short and sweet by only going into detail on one of the changes I’ve made since the last update and by listing the rest in dot points. Let me know what you think about the new style in the comments or on Facebook/Twitter.

So, without wasting any time, let’s start!

Deep Dive – Improved Feedback:

One of the comments I receive most frequently from testers at events is for additional, visual, positive and negative feedback as the sound effects currently used in the game are sometimes drowned out by environmental noises. As such, I’ve spent much of the past few weeks figuring out ways to augment our existing methods and have settled on using quick but noticeable animations to inform players as to whether they hit the right button or not.

While I’ve not finished tinkering with them yet, an example of positive feedback can be seen above in the form of the attack animation that’s played by a samurai when their player hits the correct button. While it’s currently a little too Star Wars Episode 1-ie given that the attacks don’t connect, this sort of animation is a very obvious way to tell if you (or your opponent) are doing well and I’m looking forward to getting feedback on it. In the future, I hope to add additional animations to cover hitting the wrong button, pre-fight boasting, victory, and death/defeat.

New Features:

• Added a game options screen to improve the user experience.
• Added gamepad images w/ highlighted buttons to versus screen to improve information to users.
• Added attack animation to time trial mode when players hit the correct button to improve game feel.
• Match-based stat tracking for improved bragging.

Planned Features/Work In Progress:

• Singleplayer training mode versus AI.
• Improved visual feedback on hits versus misses.
• Profile-based stat tracking.

Bugfixing:

• The pre-fight screen now works as intended.
• Health bars no longer appear over the pre-fight screen.
• Fixed input lag on match start.
• Fixed bug where a player could win despite having fewer points if their opponent didn’t finish their button list.
• Fixed issue where changing resolutions would break sprite locations and sizes.
• Fixed issue where character locations would differ depending on the screen resolution.
• Moved time bars to the top of the screen.
• Moved characters closer together in time trial mode.

Final Notes:

I hope that you have all enjoyed this experiment in posting styles (and the fact that it’s less than 1,000 words. :v). Please let me know what you think about today’s dev blog in the comments below or via Twitter/Facebook, as I love any sort of feedback I can use to improve the way I talk to you.

See ya!