A3: Tool Time Launch!

Yo!
Wow! This was meant to be a 7 day and done with the foundation gameplay kinda project...But then I got sick and I've been working as much as I can through all the lung collapsing coughing, the getting up every minute to blow my nose, Alaska level chills; and my head hurting like a xenomorph is trying to break through my skull. So it hasn't been easy; but it has paid off!

I present to you ALPHA 3 (A3) Tool Time!

The biggest feature in this update is the Workshop!
The workshop is one of the BIG foundation features I needed for this game to really work. Now, this went from a simple "Collect XP from enemies until you can level up" and your lineup of 5 ship stages from crop plane to star ship was the original vision. I spent time on this, I had it working; but it was so boring to even make let alone play. It was too simple for a rogue-lite game that would need a ton of replayability and fun every run. Especially considering there's no space gameplay planned for this portion of the game. I figured I'd make space an expansion later and focus on the concept of building a crop plane up enough for it to go to space.

So scrapped that, and started working on this menu which wasn't too great to start:

At this state it was only called the "Customization Menu" which didn't even have a way to enter or leave; it simply existed to take a screenshot and say "I'm doing it!". Then my 3rd day into being sick I was feeling better and went to work because I have bills to pay; and got it more worked on during my 30 minute break.

This was a significant increase in progress! I even had a mockup customize menu for each of the parts. It's also when I started calling it the workshop.
Then during an hour or so after my shift I added in currency and some better UI for the workshop. 

From here came a few hours here and there at home when I wasn't dying, 30 minute breaks at work; and by day 7's end I had this!

There's still more updates to come to the workshop! Such as unequipping parts so you have no parts equipped in that area. Color customization! This is going to be a whole rework in itself most likely but will happen! More parts of course! And so much more! I however am happy that the workshop is functional at a foundational level where the game's vision can freely be seen and experienced during this phase of development. I'd like to start to create enemies, hazards, collectables; and the actual environments you'll fly over!

Beyond that main feature of this update there's a lot of Interface Changes!

The biggest UI change was adding in a health bar which I went through several ideas for. From adding the healthbar around the ship as a circular meter, under the ship in classic rectangle format, underneath a pilot avatar; and so many more concepts! But, at the end I thought of having damage displayed by the background of the player. Like you could see the interior of the ship being destroyed as your health drops. I don't have any interior art, so I added a meter behind it as the background. I really liked it! 

With a few tweaks here and there I had it changing colors when damaged and healed; as well as a fun emote that pops up!

With that done I went ahead and made a very basic little game over screen! It's basic but it works for now.

Now that I had a death loop I went ahead to pausing the game. It features a game freeze with a nice little blur; and some basic features which only resume and quit currently work. Sorry if you wanted settings right now; I'll get to them over the next few updates.

I reworked the button system and a chunk of the menu controls a bit until it all played nice; heavily seen in the workshop features. 

Upgraded particles were also a nice little polish add in for this update!

And that sums up the whole update! There was of course lots of little bugs fixed; but they generally were introduced because of this updates features. While the gameplay is still forming a week into development and my "Make a game in a week!" idea is gone; I still have a huge start to this project. I'll of course blame my development speed on me being sick :D

The next update is being worked on now! So see you on the next update and let me know what you think of this update!