So, after finishing up the game’s gauntlet level, I returned to work on the boss, as I mentioned in last week’s devlog. Since the second phase is really a more frantic and difficult version of the first phase, it was not too difficult to implement, nor did it take much time. I did have to re-animate different attacks, however, which did take a while.

To finish things off, I made the boss’s death animation, and I have to say, it’s really raw compared to the death animations of everything else you kill in the game. Whenever something is killed, it usually explodes, because you know, for the kids. Even the mid-boss you fight earlier on in the game explodes upon death. The boss though? It stumbles a bit, but then it pretty much just drops dead. It crawls a bit, but ultimately it collapses. I can’t really show it yet, but it’s quite “dark” compared to everything that happened before it. The contrast between it and other creature deaths in the game is kind of cool, though. It kinda makes you realize what you’ve just done, kinda like with Crocomire in Super Metroid (but with less skin melting).

I soon reached a finishing point with the boss. I also ran through it from beginning to end to make sure it worked, and while it still needs refinement in some areas, it works, and can be defeated. Given that this boss is a pretty major one, I of course have a proper reward. After defeating it, a path opens at the other side of the boss arena that takes to a room with large stairs, with a blue ornate chest at the top. In the chest is a crystal orb (original, right?). The orb will then augment your pickaxe to have the ability to perform what I call the “pick spin”. The pick spin allows you to use your pickaxe like a helicopter rotor and slow your descent, allowing you to reach far off ledges you couldn’t normally reach by normal jumping. Another ability I plan to add is being able to quickly thrust the pickaxe downwards. Normally you can “pickaxe pogo” and bounce off enemies by pressing down on the D-pad while in the air. By pressing a button (yet to be decided), you can fall downwards at much higher speed and drill through breakable rocks and enemies without bouncing. This is yet to be added, but it’s planned functionality.

When designing the room with the blue ornate chest, I realized that, with the limited tiles I’ve made, I can still make some pretty nice designs on walls and in the background. I tried to make the room look as nice as possible with the tiles I had. Honestly, it wouldn’t hurt to make some more tiles though to assist in set-dressing. I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got, though. Given the designs I was able to add onto the walls (notably the patterns on the area where the stairs are and under the chest), I'll probably go back to previous levels and add similar designs. They're just using surface tiles (the ones that Michael actually usually walks on) to make the patterns. I also plan to have illustrations on the walls that would show the abilities that the pick spin provides, as a way to sort of subtly convey information to the player.

Now that the boss has been completed (At least generally), I spent some time tying up loose ends that still need work. One such thing is the ability to have some switches remain persistent in whatever state they are in. I mentioned this in my last devlog, but what I mean by that is, let’s say that Michael (the character you control) goes into level 3, which has a large dark pyramid. He needs to find a switch lever to turn on the lights, and also a lever to open a door to further explore the pyramid. It takes a bit of time to get to those levers. Let’s say he decides to leave the level, but then comes back. Well, since the level was unloaded and reloaded by him leaving and returning, the lever that controls the lights, and the lever that controls the door is now back at its initial state, which is off. So Michael would have to go back and turn on the lights in that pyramid and re-open the door. That would be super annoying, especially if you died, which causes the level to reload (I also go more in depth with this last week). So because of that, I decided to have switches that remain persistent. Michael’s main script has an boolean array on him that keeps track of all persistent switches. False for off, True for on. Any switches that I mark as persistent, that also have a number corresponding to the proper place in that array, will remain either on or off depending on whether or not the boolean is true or false. Since Michael does not unload and reload when moving between levels, that array will always have the same value and never reset mid-game. That way, if Michael leaves flicks on a switch that’s set to persistent, leaves the level, and re-enters it, it will remain on. Overall, it’s just a general quality-of-life improvement. The state of these persistent switches will also be saved in your game’s save file, so if you close the game and re-open it, those switches will still be in the state you left them at. I'd drop an image, but it's kind of hard to show this without making a video. I have plans to also make a video form of these devlogs for people who don't wanna read these long paragraphs, so if I do that, I'll attach it to this.

For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be continuing to work on tweaks to the game, and adding necessary functionality that I haven’t yet gotten to, such, as assigning wealth values to each chest you find in the game. I haven’t explained this much in the devlog, although you can read about some of it on the game’s website, but each chest you open reveals treasure that gives you a certain amount of wealth. Typically, the easy-to-find chests don’t give a ton of wealth, but the harder-to-find ones do. I haven’t yet assigned wealth values to levels 3 and 4, so I began doing that.

Most of the game’s major features have now been added. Right now, it’s just adding the last few things, and making any necessary tweaks and bug fixes. Once that happens, Lost Caves will then hit Beta and begin the testing phases! Things are right on schedule for the December release!