Week 3 – Polish, Panic, and a Dive Roll
Since the beginning, my plan for Week 3 was to gather everything from the MVP and start turning it into a real game.
Polish, iterate, and give it that final game-feel magic.
I kicked off the week with a trusty post-it covered in every mechanic and idea I wanted in the game. I ran them through the classic MoSCoW prioritization (Must, Should, Could, Won’t) and started knocking them out one by one… well, sort of.
The Dive Roll!
First up: a freakin’ Dive Roll.
I really wanted to give players a tool to express themselves and create cool risk/reward moments. Enter the Dive Roll: a one-button move that launches you forward with great speed but terrible recovery, but it gives you just enough air time to open up so many possibilities.
On its own, it’s simple. But combined with elevation,momentum , and creativity, it opens up some crazy paths and fun traversal routes all over the level.
Shooting & Health Mechanic
Enemies now shoot at you… and yep, it actually hurts now. Even worse, it drains your timer. If your time hits zero? Game over.
BUT! There’s a twist: damage is queued and trickled in over time. This leaves a window for players to make risky last-second comebacks if they can reach a collectable in time.
Risky, rewarding, and engaging.
Level Design Changes
I’m pretty happy with where the level is now. I actually scrapped about 25% of the original space and restructured it to be more compact and interconnected, and it paid off.
Now it flows way better, with fun shortcuts, sneaky hidden passages, and some spicy dive roll paths. It’s a tighter experience that feels more dynamic overall.
Spawners Going Wild
My nemesis this week? The collectable spawner system.
The plan was simple: randomly spawn collectables between preset points, and respawn them elsewhere once collected. Easy, right?
…Wrong.
I ran into everything from spawning collectables in a geometric progression (crashing the game) to infinite loops (also crashing the game).
Still fighting this one, but I have a plan B ready just in case.
Packaging Panic
Here’s a lesson in hindsight: start packaging earlier.
I saved this for late in the week and paid the price, a full day of bug-hunting, panicking, and chasing obscure packaging errors.
Multiplayer!?!
This was my favorite “could-have” that I actually managed to squeeze in: local split-screen multiplayer!
It’s still pretty rough and I had to rework a bunch of systems, but seeing the game as a chaotic co-op stealth-arcade-underwear-runner is… magical.
Totally worth the crunch.
My Last (Sneaky) Steps
No more big systems or mechanics from here on out — just decoration, iteration, and fixing bugs.
I’m still a bit scared of the collectable system (but Plan B is prepped), and I’m hoping to clean up multiplayer a bit more before diving into menus and final touches.
I’m a little behind schedule, but that was expected — that’s why buffer time exists! The final week will be frantic, but I’m super hyped to wrap this project up!