Following its surprisingly warm reception at Ludum Dare (thanks so much to everyone for such amazing feedback), I’m currently doing some further development work on the Duellists. Currently the most major change is the graphics, as I’ve decided to see what happened if I ramped up the pixel definition by 2 and removed the 16 colour limit. You can see a split-screen comparison with a current test version below:
I’m quite happy with how it’s turning out so far. I should have most of the graphics converted over by tonight, then it’s back to work on the gameplay. It’s looking like Sunday for the release of Alpha 2, here’s a few highlights of what to expect:
- Rebalanced difficulty of normal mode, added a very lethal hard mode and a super-easy mode for casual play or for players with limited motor function.
- Completely redrawn higher-definition pixel art.
- Better visual cues for players without sound.
- New animations for flinching/hit, cocking and firing weapons for all characters.
- Rounds are now limited to 3 exchanges of fire before “Stalemate” is declared.
- New health/injury system, tied into difficulty levels.
- New scoring system, tied into Guineas, the game’s currency.
- Graveyard fixed in the HTML5 version (fingers crossed).
- Some new sound effects and soundtrack work.
- Hopefully some other cool stuff.
In case you’re wondering about the currency, it’s just video game play money. I don’t sell virtual currency and I don’t believe in IAP bullshit either. A scoring system based on betting Guineas just seemed to fit with the theme.
Regarding multiplayer, local multi will be coming soon, not this update but maybe the next. Online is going to be much more of a pain but I know there’s quite a few people who’d like to see it so I’ll see what I can do. There’s also going to be an android port (probably for alpha 3) once I get a control system sorted out.
If you have any comments or feedback, as always I’d love to hear it. I want to try and make this as good a game as I can, and every little helps.
