Hi everyone!

We've made great progress during the first week of the second sprint, though we did encounter a few issues along the way. We started the week with our usual meetings, first in the auditorium where we received guidance on planning our next steps, and later we discussed tasks and features with our group upstairs. After that, we distributed the tasks among our group members. Last but not least, we had a meeting with our supervisors.

Build Progress

Regarding our progress, we're excited to announce a new weapon - the corn rocket launcher - which is designed to follow targets. The only way to avoid it is by digging underground. To balance the gameplay, we've reduced its damage by 50% and made it a rare spawn. 

Additionally, we've implemented several new menu functionalities:

• Main menu: 
  • Start, settings, and quit.

• Join menu:
  • Players can join by pressing a button on their controller.
  • They can explore and learn the controls while waiting for others.
  • Once ready, players can press "start" to begin the game.

• End menu:
  • Displays scores.
  • Players can choose to play again or quit.

Regarding the update to the lives display, we faced a challenge in hiding a portion of the 3D model easily. As we wanted to use our toon shader for the UI, the artists had to apply it to a 3D model, which made it difficult to transition from red to black hearts smoothly. To solve this, the black hearts are placed first in the render queue, ensuring that they are always visible, while the red hearts are hidden behind an invisible rectangle and only become visible when they are not obstructed by it. This could be achieved by adding a custom shader script.

Art Progress

Our art team has been hard at work adding new models and visual effects to the game. They have created a shovel model that indicates when a player can dig, as well as a new short-range weapon model - an axe - to add more variety. Additionally, they created a model for the UI hearts, which fits well with the toon shader we are using.

We're excited to announce that we've made some cool new visual effects, such as a dust wave effect when the Giant Farmer's Foot hits the ground and a VFX for dashing. We also made 3 effects for digging: a cloud of dust floating up when going underground, a pile of rocks with rocks flying around them while moving underground and finally a circle of dust when popping up from the surface. The digging effect is designed in such a way that the player will leave a trail of rocks behind them while being underground. These effects enhance the overall gameplay experience and make it more immersive for players. 

Finally, the artists have been refining their animation skills and working on new walking animation. We're looking forward to implementing these animations in the next week. Overall, our art team has made excellent progress, and we can't wait to see how these new models and effects will improve the game.

That's all for this week's devlog. We're excited about the progress we've made during the second sprint and are looking forward to continuing our work on the game. We've introduced new weapons and improved the menu functionality, as well as made significant updates to the art and visual effects. Stay tuned for more updates in the next devlog, and thank you for following our development journey!