Menu Concept, Charge Cubes, Test Level, and Charge States

It’s been a while since the last post, a number of changes have been made to Shatter Ball since. There are now three different states of the ball:

  • Drained state: The ball moves slowly and can not launch midair.

  • Charged state: The ball moves faster and can deplete the charge to launch one time midair.

  • Supercharged state: the ball moves at top speed and can launch a total of two times midair, depleting to charged state, then to drained state.

Charged surfaces have been removed and replaced with charge cubes. This adds more skill to the game, as the player must aim for the cubes if they want to move at higher speeds. The red cube changes the ball to charged state, and the blue cube changes the ball to supercharged state. I may add in a grey cube at some point that drains the cube.

I added a new test level that introduces jumping, charge cubes, and a magnetized surface. The magnetized surface is a cylinder that requires the player to maneuver upside down to get to the goal. I also added a new conceptual material to the magnetized surface that makes it stand out.

There is a new main menu that I am using to switch between test levels. Currently there are only three buttons for three different levels. I am currently working on the final version of the main menu which I will show off in the next post, and I can say that it is a massive improvement to what I have right now.

Here is a video showing off the new test level, charge states, and main menu. A number of small changes can be seen as well:

  • Timer starts when launching.

  • Charge state resets on respawn.

  • Ball has a delay before it starts to slow.