Mad Meddlers version 14.1 released! Particle Effects, Movement improved. Bugs fixed.

This time, I added particle effects to attacks and projectiles. I did not regard effects or "juice" as very important. However, I have been convinced by watching Indie Game Clinic that special effects such as particle effects, lighting, etc are important for visual information to the player. Before, the attack animations were difficult to read because they were not clear i.e. little information was read to distinguish startup, active, and recovery phases of the attack. Now with particle effects, the attacks can be read more easily because more information is being given to the player to see the difference between startup, active and recovery phases of the attack. Active phase has most of the particles, startup is few particles and a specific pose indicating preparation for an attack,  recovery has no particles and character is mostly still and then moves back to idle animation. 

The attack animations have been changed to use choppy animation. I was convinced to make animation choppy after seeing a few youtube video essays on the benefits of choppy animations such as being clear and low-cost to make. Looking at the fight scenes in the Dragon Ball Z anime, I see that the attacks tend to follow a clear pattern of a few seconds of a pose where character looks like they are preparing for an attack, the attack is indicated with blur and lines, and then, the final pose where the character finished the attack. The most compelling reason for choppy animation working is because people fill in the blanks in-between the key poses of animation which is why it looks natural. People are assuming natural movement between key poses. However, this illusion requires effort to maintain and look close to natural.

Bugs were fixed as well. Collision from guard block was registered as multiple hits which made chip damage from guarding against an attack much more than damage from not guarding against attack. I made the health decrease only happen once on guard block. 

Some particle effects bugs were fixed. 

I put the platforms to the corners of the stage to not block the camera view. 

I received feedback that the stages were too big and looked at how other games such as Soul Calibur 2 and Super Smash Bros. Melee handled stage size. I was surprised to see that the stages were actually pretty big there was well. I estimate that small stages were about 10-15 base character widths wide and long, and big stages were about 20-30 character widths wide and long. However, they do not feel big because the characters walking speed made it so that one can move across the stage in about 4 to 7 seconds and run across the stage in 2 to 3 seconds. I increased walking speed of the characters to make the stages feel smaller, but also give enough space for 4 players to play in. Before walking was slow and running was a huge difference. Now walking speed is fast, and running just gives a slight boost which is much more comfortable to play with. 

I still need to experiment and learn level design.