Devlog - Updates / Planned Updates Based Upon The Testing Session

Devlog – Updates / Planned Updates Based Upon The Testing Session  

This devlog is about the future updates that may be added into the game, and any ideas for updates to be added as a result of the feedback received from the survey conducted about the current state of the game.

Updates that have been planned and I would like to implement in the future regardless of the outcome of the assignment include adding different game modes. Some of these such as the endless game mode (where you can swipe tiles endlessly) and the 3 minute rush (where you have 180 seconds to get as many points as possible) are already in the process of being added to the game however they are not quite ready at the moment.  In addition to the game modes mentioned above, there are plans to add a story mode where the user plays through a number of different levels with different tasks in order to progress through a story. This game mode will take longer to implement but it is something that I hope to add in the future.

I would also like to add powerups to the game, however they would more likely come with the addition of the story mode. Powerups would do things such as double the score for the next X moves, add more time to the timer or add more moves. Other powerups such as destroying all of a single type of slime/tile are being considered but there aren't any plans to implement these types of powerups at the moment.

An in-game menu is also in the works to be added into the game. The menu would contain functions to restart a level or to return to the main menu. This way the user does not need to finish the level or restart the application in order to get out the game.

From the feedback received, a lot of people would like to see the addition of more game modes as listed above as well as the power ups added into the game. They would also like to see bonus points awarded for getting matches of more than 3 tiles in a row. This is also something I would like to implement at a later stage but there are no immediate plans to do so.

It was also mentioned that some people found that the colour choices/font choice for the displayed text was at times difficult to read. This is also something that I plan to fix in the future especially when it will become more of an issue when the story mode added.

The feedback also indicated that adding some background music to the game would add to its overall quality. I also believe that this is a good idea and that some form of calm background music would add to the appeal of the game.   

In addition to all the updates planned or listed above, there are plans to fix the bug that occurs when the user swipes the same tile too quickly leading to gaps in the game board. The plan is to fix this bug before adding other game modes. This is due to the fact that in a game mode such as 3-minute rush, the user is going to be swapping tiles as fast as they can in order to get the highest score possible which would lead to a higher chance of the bug occurring.