Puzzle Reign, back to work

Hello, 

This is a short devlog to show some of the last advancements in Puzzle Reign. 
It has been a long time since the project was updated, 2021 has been a loaded year, and we have been extremely busy with our regular jobs. After 4 months of pause, here are the latest advancements: better Main menu, Visuals, Gameplay balance, and Progression.

Main Menu

The original menu was very rough, so it got re-skined using a parallax background and some prettier buttons. The game logo is still to be redesigned in pixelart.

Better visuals

The art looks a lot crispier now, with proper pixel art and improved 2.5D occlusions. This was the most annoying aspect of the original prototype.
Other improvements include UI feedback, and a decent amount of particles.

Gameplay Balance

The original game had multiple issues regarding the scoring system, game speed and zoom out. As now we are using a low-resolution retro style, we are fixing the maximum amount of world tiles in arcade mode (24x24 world tiles). For that reason, the difficulty curve will be adjusted accordingly.

For similar reasons, the in-game bonuses will also be adjusted and moved from the popup present in the current version to elements that drop in the same area of the pieces.

A good side effect of rethinking the balance in a non-linear fashion is that we can envision adding challenges based on the level progression, but that is still in the works.

Achievements and progression

The progression will provide some light achievements based on score and accumulated constructions, for now, only stored via cookies (unless you want to log in using a 3rd party platform).

The deadline

The current objective is to have the final version of the game released by the end of the year (and then only doing adjustments and bugfixes). For that reason, experimental versions will be uploaded in the following weeks, to get some feedback.

That's it! I hope the next devlog will not take another 6 months!

Best,
-Sol