Greetings once again! On this devlog I’ll be talking about several new mechanics and gameplay elements I couldn’t really fit into the previous entry. Some of them have been around for a while now, but I couldn’t really find a spot to fit them in the devlog so far. Which is why I just waited a bit and bundled them up together now. Let’s get into it.

In the second devlog (the one about UI), I talked about scores, but I didn’t really get into it, since the system wasn’t ready yet. It’s ready to roll now, along with a neat score screen at the end of the level to show you the result of your deeds:

This screen will light up each of the badges according to the player’s achievements in the level. To recapitulate:

• Badge of the Swift: Complete the level without getting hit by enemies.
• Badge of the Undying: Complete the level without dying.
• Badge of the Reaper: Complete the level with a full combo.

After the badges are delivered, the score is calculated, with the following factors:

PASSIVE SCORE

Passive score constantly accumulates as the player advances in the level, only stopping when pausing or when a cutscene triggers. The passive score rate is affected by a hidden multiplier, that ramps up over time until it hits a x10 factor after an entire minute. Suffering damage of any kind instantly resets this multiplier.

COMBO SCORE

Combo score is the accumulated value of enemy kills and collectibles over the entire level. Each enemy/collectible has a score value when killed or picked up respectively. If two enemies are killed within a certain period of time, the combo multiplier increases by 1. This multiplier can be seen in the bottom left corner of the screen, along with the total accumulated score so far (passive + combo):

This indicator can be completely hidden from the Game Settings menu, since some people might find it distracting.

If too much time goes on without an enemy kill, or if the player receives damage of any kind, the combo multiplier resets. Otherwise, it will keep growing with every kill, with no upper limit.

There are certain areas with especially low amounts of enemies (or even none at all). In such areas, Combo Keepers can be found, brightly lit objects than can be destroyed with the laser attack (melee won’t work). These will reset the combo decay timer, allowing the player to keep it for longer amounts of time.

Additionally, when the player enters a boss fight, the combo decay timer stops completely, making it possible to fight the boss without losing the combo. More on bosses on a future devlog, that’s a whole other subject entirely!

From the moment the player first initiates a combo, the end of the level must be reached without losing the multiplier in order to obtain the Badge of the Reaper.

DEATH BONUS

The player will obtain bonus score depending on the amount of deaths throughout the level. The bonus starts at 100% extra score at 0 deaths, and it goes down by 10% per death, until it eventually reaches 0%. It can’t be negative.

KILL BONUS

The player will obtain bonus score depending on the number of enemies killed. A theoretical 100% extra score can be obtained if every single enemy is killed, but the fact that many chunks feature different possible paths with enemies on all of them makes it impossible to obtain. Will still be a significant bonus in almost every situation though.

TOTAL SCORE

The total score is the sum of passive and combo score, multiplied by the extra bonus from deaths and kills (up to x3). This is the score that will show up in the level selection screen back at the main menu, and the score that will go into the high-scores later on.

In essence, the score system isn’t really something a casual player, or a first-time player should worry too much about, and it’s mostly meant to spice up the levels and to give a sense of reward/fulfillment for those who care about those things.

Some collectibles have been added into the game! A collectible is exactly what the name implies: a particular object that collides with the player, and gets picked up as a consequence.

It’s kinda weird how these things are, literally, enemies. They use the exact same code arquitecture as most melee enemies in the game (and they are treated as such in every single script), but they have no contact damage whatsoever, they cause a particular effect to take place instead.

There’s only 3 of them implemented so far, but might include more if necessary:

REPAIR PACKS

The Repair Pack allows the recovery of health, which is otherwise impossible unless by death or by reaching a checkpoint.

These handy goodies can be found on specific locations in the level. The location itself is not random, they always spawn on the same places, but their actual chances of spawning do change. The current difficulty of the game will make them more likely or unlikely to spawn. At the lowest difficulty they will be guaranteed to spawn, while at the hardest difficulty they won’t spawn at all. Their effectiveness also changes with difficulty, becoming less and less effective on the more challenging modes.

CHIPS

The Chip pickup is a Story Mode exclusive collectible that always spawns in a very particular chunk on each stage, the Challenge Chunk. This chunk is guaranteed to spawn every single time the stage is played, at some point among the random assortment of generated chunks. It usually presents the player with a certain challenge (a handful of enemies to defeat, particularly difficult parkour, or other kinds of complex interactions), and the chip can be obtained as a reward. However, it also allows the player to pass through without facing these extra difficulties, therefore forfeiting the chip.

These chips can be used to permanently increase the player’s stats (health, damage, shield, cooldowns, etc.) back on the main menu. They are difficulty-dependant, and they’ll never spawn again once obtained.

DATA

The Data pickup is just a glorified coin, really. I wanted to have the ever-typical coin pickup, but an actual coin wouldn’t really fit with the theme of the game, so I just went with shiny data cards/chips, that “coincidentally” look like coins.

They will add extra score to the player’s combo score, and they are affected by the combo multiplier, although picking them up does not increase said multiplier.

As of now, these will be exclusive to Endless Mode, spawning on nearly every chunk the player encounters, and they’ll be specially common in the more challenging areas and paths of each chunk, as a form of reward for the extra risk. I’m considering making them available in Story Mode as well, but I kinda need to think about it. I did want to make some differences in visuals/mechanics for Endless Mode, beyond it being, well, endless.

The concept of interactable objects in the levels is now starting to take shape! So far only one such occurrence exists, but many more are planned to come in future levels, most likely as particular hazards or interactivity within the theme of a particular episode.

Right now, barriers are a thing. These are essentially removable obstacles. They will instantly kill the player upon contact, but they can be disabled before reaching them, allowing safe passage.

Disabling them usually requires destroying fuses on the walls, visible long before reaching the barrier itself. Other kinds of conditions also apply, like eliminating particular enemies tied to the barrier, or passing through specific areas with sensors that will open the barrier if they detect the player.

The code architecture of these barriers actually opens up lots and lots of possibilities. In essence, they all have 3 distinct parts:

• The target object, something that experiences a change or effect upon meeting a certain condition.
• The interactable itself, which the player can interact with in different ways in order to cause the change (by shooting it, melee-ing it, passing through it, etc.).
• A trigger, located long before reaching the interactable, which resets and prepares the previous elements for the designed player interaction.

With these things in mind, anything goes. All sorts of things can be done, like moving platforms or walls, special spawning of enemies or collectibles, areas with special effects on the player/enemies, even purely visual stuff to spice up the graphics (lights, environmental destruction, etc.). Any of these can be achieved with slight variations of the 3-part system described above. Only time can tell in what ways I'll be able to exploit this system in future content!

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More and more pieces are falling in place! I’m excited to have reached the point where I finally have all the necessary systems to keep building both game and story alike (or at least most of them). It’s now time to push forward and get to work on the new stages for real.

As a matter of fact, there’s already several new, fully functional enemies ready for the next stages, and many of the new chunks are already done, featuring an indoors tileset and style. The next devlog will probably be focused on details about all this content, as well as the boss system, probably the last big system I need to design for now!

So, stay tuned for future updates if I managed to pick your interest. Any feedback, no matter how trivial, will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you for reading!

Full Threaded Games, out.