Hello and welcome to our second devlog of KingOfTheCrown.
I am sure you waited all week for this, and totally didn't forget this game existed.
And it's finally here ! No, not the game, that will still take a couple of weeks.
But at least there's another devlog, which is what you're reading right now.
Hello there reader, am I wasting your time ?

Programming

This week our programmers continued working on the prototype.
Now the game is playable with up to 4 players and can be played with both mouse&keyboard and controller.

We were also able to add unique abilities for all 4 characters :

A bouncing shuriken for the ninja gecko (the gecko happens to look a lot like a blue cylinder)
When this ability is activated, the player throws a shuriken at a fast speed in the direction that they're aiming.
This shuriken bounces against platforms while maintaining a constant velocity.
If this shuriken hits a player, that player will be stunned and, if they have it, also lose the crown.
After around 2 seconds the shuriken disappears, never to be seen again.
Unless the player activates the ability again of course.

An ink shot for the squid
If the squid player activates their ability they will shoot an ink droplet.
When this droplet collides with a platform it will spawn an 'ink spot'.
Players that stand on that platform will be unable to dash away while the ink spot is there,
making them an easy target.
The ink spot will slowly shrink and then disappear, 
and once it has disappeared the squid will be able to use its ability again.

A rolling attack for the hedgehog
The hedgehog increases its power level and transcends to its ultimate form, a sphere.
While it's a sphere it will be completely immune to all damage.
They will then roll along the surface the player is standing on, in the direction the player is aiming.
Damaging all players in their path.
And because gravity is just a suggestion and nobody likes Newton you can do this on every platform,
the floor, the ceiling, the walls, nowhere is safe.
(except the air of course, hedgehogs can't fly, or that's what I think at least, 
but I'm not a biologist so who knows)

A tongue attack for the frog
Have you ever licked someone from 5 meters away ? No ?
Well now you can. You can shoot your 100% anatomically correct tongue and drag another player to you.
This will stun the other player and will make them drop the crown.
This ability might be harder to hit than some of the others but if you can hit an enemy with this,
you can both make them drop the crown AND drag them away from the crown,
giving them a significant disadvantage.
If this doesn't make them rage-quit, I don't know what will.
Maybe hiding their controller while they go to the toilet ?

We also polished the crown a bit,
now the crown flies away when dropped and bounces against the platforms.
The crown then quickly slows down so it can be picked up again so a new king of the crown can rise.

Players are now also stunned for a short amount of time if they're hit.
At the moment when a player is stunned they spin around for a bit.
But through sheer determination they are then quickly able to continue the battle as if 
they didn't just get hit by a ridiculously large shuriken.  'T was but a scratch after all.
And if they were dashing before they got damaged they will just continue that dash after the stun.

Art

This week the art crew primarily focused on completing the art bible and doing some sketches to illustrate the mechanics of the game on our Hacknplan.

Doing this was not easy, finding ref for a low poly styled game from a flat(sideview) camera perspective was very hard, so we had to take a lot of inspiration from other games with a more 3d perspective.

We also made assets to showcase/test our meshes shape and art style(polyflow, hardened edges, etc.).

For the environment a lot of settings and time periods were researched.

Eventually we landed on a modern japanese urban setting.

Lots of neon signs, taxi's, vending machines etc. will fill the background scene.

The confines of the playing field itself will be bound by a Torii gate, a typical sight in japan.

For the characters we did some research about the proportions, the shape language and the use of our color palette.

We are going to use a character style similar to a style used in the game: For the king.

The players are going to get their own specific character with each their own hue/color.

The characters are 4 - 5,5 heads tall.