Final Release!

For the final week of development, the main focus was to update the guidance so that it works properly and directs the player through all steps of the story. Prior to this update, the guidance system could be broken by the player early on. We also fixed miscellaneous bugs such as guns not returning to their proper position when swapping and enemies being able to access safe areas. We added a “cursed mode” that is unlockable by beating the story mode which replaces most game sounds with much weirder noises. 

In a major change, the number of supplies necessary to progress through story mode has been altered. This was done in an attempt to balance the difficulty of this gamemode. We also reduced the travel distance of our escort mission, increased the speed of the cart, and made it so the player could ride in the cart, as playtesters got bored of following the cart normally. We spent time optimizing the final boss enemy, which was previously causing large lag spikes and other performance issues for our playtesters. Our last major visible changes were to change the fonts in game to reflect our western theme, as well as add a credit sequence that triggers after beating the story mode.

The changes to our story mode's length (reducing number of supplies collected and reducing length of escort mission) were suggested changes by playtesters who found some of the gameplay boring when things didn’t change. The quicker changes of objective improved the players experience and kept the game feeling fresh. The credits sequence and the changes to the UI were updates that were needed but not a priority until very late stages of the project. With the polish applied and a game we are proud of, we are not sure where we are headed next. At the moment we are satisfied with what we created and may leave the game in its current state. We plan on updating the game when bugs are discovered so that we can upgrade the quality of the game without major development of changes.