Back in my first devlog, I spoke about how I tend to get carried away with the sizes of my levels. (This tendency actually extends to games like Super Mario Maker 2 as well), and while the Gauntlet level I've been working on for the past couple of weeks is not designed in the same way as the previous four levels, with it being more of a traditional linear level, it is still quite large.

Given that the previous four levels introduced a lot of different mechanics, however, I wanted to have those same mechanics in this level as well, as a final test, which is a large reason for its length. That being said, it won't be getting larger, because I also finished it! I think the level ends pretty well, as the last major hurdle is a massive amount of wayward bear cubs bursting through a wall and chasing you down a winding tunnel. It makes for a good climax, I think, since the entire level takes place in their territory, hence the hive-like aesthetic. Below is a video showing it. I also semi-frequently will post videos of Lost Caves onto my twitter, so make sure to follow me there if you'd like to see  more frequent updates!

It actually took me a few takes to make this video so that I wasn't complete overcome by them. With that in mind, I may have made it a bit too difficult. Once the game hits beta, I'll be going into testing phases as well, so I'll probably be able to get a good metric on that. But I think it still makes a good set piece.

Given the level's size, I've also added a couple of checkpoint altars in it, which I mentioned in devlog #9. Just recently, however, I added their complete functionality due to me changing how Michael respawns after death. Originally, back in 2017 if he died, the level would restart and he'd be put back at the starting door of the level. After designing level 3, though, which involves you going through a large pyramid and flipping switches to activate the torches inside to light everything up, and also to open doors to progress further, I realized that dying and having to redo all of that all over again would be really tedious and annoying, so I instead have Michael get taken back to the start of the level still, but I don't restart the entire level itself though, as in, I don't reload it. That way, switches that were flicked will remain flicked. 

This however, led to another problem. If players accumulated a lot of wealth from chests and coins, they could just purposely die so they could get immediately taken back to the start of the level. Realizing how abusable that was, I decided that, when you respawn, your coin count is halved. This doesn't change the wealth you get from chests, though. So if you got a bunch of chests and decided that you didn't want to walk back to the start to exit the level, you could just kill yourself and get taken back with your wealth obtained from chests still in hand. This was actually still an issue even if I just reloaded the level. A while back, I decided that, whenever you die, you respawn at your last saved location, and the level reloads as well. The game is auto-saved whenever you enter through a door, or activate a checkpoint altar, so you'd be taken back to one of those areas, and your save data from when you entered the door or activated the altar, will be loaded, including your wealth. So any wealth obtained from coins, or treasure from chests after saving will no longer be in your possession.

This method of respawning is actually the reason I added checkpoints to the game. Since levels can get very large, I didn't want players to have to go back to the starting door to save their data, so altars serve the same purpose, with them being placed in different areas across large levels.

In order to combat the problem of having to reflick switches to turn on lights and open doors every time, like is the case with level 3's pyramid, I'll eventually have a tag to make some switches persistent, and contained in your save data, so that whenever you enter a level, those switches will be in the same position you left them in.

Anyways, since the gauntlet level is done, I've begun to work more on the boss again. As you may have read in devlog #8, I've begun working on the Boss's second phase. I was having some trouble though with how I wanted to design the second part of the fight, however. The boss's first phase has you stun it by using a cannon loaded with a blue boulder and shooting at it. When stunned, it leaves an opening for you to attack it. 

I initially didn't really want to do that with this second phase, however, and instead wanted to switch things up a bit. I was having trouble thinking of how I could change the method in which you stun and attack the boss though, if I wasn't gonna use a blue boulder cannon. Initially I was thinking that maybe the boss would have an attack where it would shoot a blue projectile at you that you could whack with your pickaxe, which would cause said projectile to fly back at the boss and stun it. Blue is often associated with an intractable object in Lost Caves, so I think the message would come across that you can whack it, but given that the boss goes through several different attacks, waiting for that one to come up would get annoying fast. A lot of bosses can be a large waiting game for it to do something that you can use to attack/stun it, and I didn't really want that in my game, so I eventually decided to ditch that altogether. Instead, I actually went back to using the blue boulder cannon. The general gameplay loop of getting the blue boulder into the cannon and firing it would remain the same. However, the boss's attacks would become a lot more difficult to manage. One of its attacks in the first phase involves it stomping on the ground and causing rocks to fall from the sky. In the second phase, in addition to rocks falling, stalactites will fall as well that will do more damage to Michael. While the boss fight will remain mostly the same, I think it'll be for the best. Not only do I not want the boss to become a waiting game, but I also don't want the player to have to re-learn how to fight it. Being midway through a fight and suddenly having to relearn how to fight it I think would be frustrating, which isn't fun.

As I’ve stated before, I’m gonna refrain from giving away too many details of what the boss is, but in general, things with it are progressing well. I don’t plan to make the second phase of the boss fight more complex or lengthy than the first phase, so that should still hopefully be ready by the end of the summer (which would be around late September). Despite how under wraps the boss is, I’ll still give be giving updates on its progress, so expect more in the future! And once again, feel free to follow me on twitter to get more frequent and smaller updates on the game’s progress!