Updates

• Make Tutorial Page
• Boosted Player's Frost Ability
• Boosted Player's Fire Ability
• Made Enemies react to Player's powers
• Make Enemies Harmless when Stunned
• Added Kick-Off Wall
• Kickable Objects
• Added Secret Passages
• Alternate Routes
• Art Direction Decision

Tutorial: I've been slowly building up a way to teach the player how to play the game. When you start the game, you'll see a drawing board behind Diablo's desk that tells you to check his Planner. By pressing the Escape Key, you can pause the game and access the How To Play page. I don't like long and drawn out tutorials, so I want to make something that is quick and accessible for my games. You'll also be able to see this every time you pause the game if you ever get stuck in a room.

Frost Ability: Diablo's Frost ability can now create Ice! Simply switch to Frost and hold the X button down to create Ice where he steps! You can officially skate your way through the levels, now! This will require precision with jumps, but if you like going fast in a game, completing the level using mainly ice powers will give you that speed.

Fire Ability: Diablo can now create fire! By switching to Fire and holding down the X button, you can create fire where he stands. Blaze your way through rooms like a true Inferno! The heat's boost not only gives you extra speed, but also higher jumps and stomps.

Enemies react: If you use your Frost Ability when an enemy is close by, you'll freeze them for a few seconds and not be harmed when you touch them. If you use your Fire Ability when they're close by, you'll set them on fire and they'll panic for a few seconds. This can help or hinder you depending on when and where you choose to utilize it to solve a puzzle or get through a room.

Stunned Enemies: When enemies get hit by crates or hazards, they are stunned for a few seconds. They turn yellow and stay in place. During this time, the player can move by them without being hurt. This also works for hazards like hot pots. You can use Diablo's Frost ability to make them cold so you can walk by, or use the Fire ability to make them hot and hazardous, but just remember that those will be a hazard to both you and the Imp Staff. Still needs a bit of polishing, but most enemies and hazards - except the falling rats - can be stunned.

Kick-Off: Don Diablo might not be so young anymore, but he's quite agile due to the nature of his lifestyle. When you walk up or jump on certain walls, Diablo will kick-off of it, giving the player extra air and travel.

Kickable Objects: I reworked an old mechanic involving some of the interactable objects in the game. You can kick the objects in the direction Diablo is facing. This is helpful when dealing with the Jumping Rats. A couple of these items can affect the Thermalium platforms, however. If you place the Hot N' Spicy brand of chips on them, it can turn the cold platforms unsolid and the hot platforms solid. A similar thing happens when you place the Forever Cold Pack on the platforms. When they're touching the platforms, your thermal abilities don't work.

Secret Passages: Some portraits hide a secret passage the player can take to get around the room. By going up to these portraits and pressing the C key, you can transport yourself to another part of the level. I wanted to add a couple of things the player can do that doesn't require them to use their powers all the time. I think it would be a fun challenge for players to try to get through a level without their abilities, although it would be the hardest route.

Alternate Routes: Furthermore, I'm creating more than one way you can get though a room. I'm aiming to get it to the point where there's at least one way you can use your abilities and interactable objects to get to the other side of the room, use only your fire power, use only your frost power, or even try to use just the interactable objects and your base move-set as fun challenges.

Art Direction: For anyone who's played the game, you'll know that the character sprites are either black and white sketches or coloured stills. This is because I've been deciding on what kind of art style I want for the game. I've decided to take a simple Art Deco style, which boomed in the 1960s. The player sprites will be coloured silhouettes and the talking sprites will be fully coloured. This is how the cartoon would've looked like. Animation studios in this era took all sorts of shortcuts due to money and time constraints. For the Inferno cartoon, I thought up one shortcut they did was to make mid-shots of the characters fully coloured and then make full shots as silhouettes. The mid-shots would be for talking and the full shots would be easy to animate and move. I'm currently in the midst of drawing them up and I plan to have them all finished by the demo's release this summer.

A couple of minor things I did was change the colour of the Cold Platform from orange to blue, added illusion objects, added more room to Diablo's Office, take away the Fire Fan 9000 for now, make the Interact Symbol appear when near interactable objects, and make the ceiling of the spell tower a bit higher.

For next time, I'm going to finalize the background and asset arts, get feedback from more playtesters, and polish the Boss Room and Garage. Thanks for supporting The Inferno Game series and see you next month!

I'm a new game dev and I appreciate any kind of feedback!