Weekly Progress Report #32

This week I finally checked an upcoming games release calendar and realized that the end of March is actually pretty packed with games. Because I don't want PogoChamp to be completely overshadowed by bigger games on launch, I've decided to delay the release for ~2 weeks. The new planned release date is April 12! For any of you that are disappointed by this news, I'm sorry, and I hope you understand my reasoning. I only get to release the game once, and I want to do what I can to make sure people find out about the game when it launches.

As a way to make it up to people who were excited about the launch, I'll be releasing an updated demo toward the end of the month that has some new / different levels than what the current demo has. As it stands now, there will be 5 different levels in the demo, but that might change as I continue refining the level ordering.




This week I've been iterating with Clark on the music for the game. I think it's coming along great, and Clark is really going above and beyond with cool generative music tracks that keep the audio from being repetitive. I'm really excited to let you all hear the final product, and hope you like it as much as I do!

• Add sample background music.
  
• Fix some incorrect colors in some levels.
  
• Experimenting with adding more texture to shaders (I don't think it's good).
  
• Fix bug where missing jackpot sound effects prevented the level from functioning properly.
  
• Created Maxi Golf level.
  
• Imported some better sports ball assets.
  
• Fix bug where you could crash inside a hamster ball if you hit something while moving fast enough.
  
• Windmill blades in Maxi Golf now properly push the character with physics.
  
• Gave the environment golf balls in Maxi Golf more friction.
  
• Added Maxi Golf to the list of levels.
  
• Fix null reference error related to Maxi Golf windmill.
  
• Hide the jump charge UI when jumping is disabled (like when inside hamster balls, cannons, after you crash, and after you enter the goal zone.
  
• Fix null reference error related to hamster ball destruction.
  
• Prevent hamster ball power up from checking if it's on the ground during replays.
  
• Replace old Football model with a new better one.
  
• Re-style the hamster ball power up to be reminiscent of Super Monkey Ball.
  
• Fully fix the bug where perfect jump trails would still be visible when replays restarted.
  
• Add down arrows to the first wall you see in Controlled Fall.
  
• Reorder a bunch of levels.
  
• Changed music to be quieter by default.
  
• Allow volume pickers to go up to 150% (was previously 100%).
  
• Adjust gate star requirements to be a bit more strict now that stars are easier to get.
  
• Add a missing gate.
  
• Gate star requirements now scale with the difficulty of the levels they lock off, instead of being a flat 1.8 star per level requirement. (this means that early gates should be easy, but some of the later gates require a LOT of stars.
  
• Added a pause menu to the level select (allows you to access the options menu from level select, which wasn't possible before).
  
• Fix bug where "fast mode" in level select would make the level info text not appear sometimes. (Fast mode isn't messaged in the UI, but is activated by holding shift or right trigger while moving in Level Select. It's not really necessary though because warping exists).
  
• Fix bug where closing pause menu in level select using the Esc key could sometimes permanently disable input, forcing you to quit & relaunch the game.
  
• Camera FOV settings now apply to the camera in Level Select.
  
• Fix various bugs with the credits display if activated from the Pause Menu.
  
• Fix error messages related to the Unity Input System missing some deprecated inputs.
  
• Fix issue where level entry fade in animation could display on top of menus if you immediately paused the game after entering a level.
  
• Added a "Development Priorities" chart to the initial Early Access warning screen, to convey what I am focusing on.
  
• Possible fix for certain ultrawide monitor resolutions not appearing in the options menu.
  
• Add hotkey for quickly swapping between options menu pages.
  
• Added placeholder scene for a cinematic when you get all the stars in the game.
  
• Added helper to track whether you have entered the "End Game".
• Total star count UI now supports "End Game".
• End Game goal times now appear in all the usual star requirement places.
• End Game goals now appear in the level quick select menu (replacing prior star icons).
• Change shadows in Level Select to be Soft Shadows instead of Hard Shadows (looks better).
  
• Added various parameters to the music for some dynamic situations.