I know I said the last  practice project I did would probably be the last… BUT I MEANT PROBABLY BECAUSE I GOT BORED AND DECIDED TO MAKE A LITTLE THING THAT I HAVE HAD IN MY HEAD FOR QUITE SOME TIME NOW BUT NEVER GOT AROUND TO EXECUTING.

Basically you can walk around like normal, and when you hold down left click you have the ability to use the mouse to swing your sword around. The mouse rotates it and you use it to slay enemies. Of course, this mechanic could be greatly expanded upon to involve more  stuff like damaging an enemy based on how hard you swung the sword, doing something Fruit Ninja-like, or other stuff. And things. And stuff. Anyway, here are the highlights, in image form.

Your sword will usually be at your side, but when you are clicking, it floats in front and you can swing it around with the mouse.

There are a bunch of creepy box dudes who follow you around. They are fast. I managed to reuse the code from my first practice project since all they do is float and fly around you and toward you.

When you hit them with your sword, they explode. Very satisfying.  You have to be clicking in order for the sword to kill them. Otherwise they will keep coming towards you and kill you, and you will respawn.

It’s hard to tell, but I made a small particle effect that plays whenever you start holding down left click to show you that you can now swing your sword. It also plays a little sound effect.

And last but not least (well it’s kind of the least I guess), I made it so you can jump pretty high. Not high enough to jump over walls, but high enough to jump over the enemies.

So… this was fun to do. I’ve always kind of wanted to do something where you have complete control over a weapon, instead of just clicking and playing an animation. It also plays really nicely; being able to jump over the enemies is especially useful and fun. The particle effects and sound make it very satisfying to use the sword, and it is also challenging. Enemies will keep spawning in the corners of the arena forever, so it is a good idea to come to them before they come to you in order to keep them at bay. You can also use the walls in the middle of the arena to hide. I’m pretty satisfied with this. It’s definitely the most fun of all the little mini-projects I’ve done.

I may do more of these or improve upon the ones I’ve already made if I have any more ideas. I feel like I’m cluttering the Ludum Dare page with the mini-Post-Mortems that I’ve been doing, though. Maybe I’ll wait until I know for sure that I’m not doing any more practice and then post about all of my mini-projects at once. WHO KNOWS? Tomorrow will be kinda iffy for me; I’ve got two trial lessons with some private cello teachers ’cause my old one moved away and that’s a thing that I do. So that’s a thing. Two things, in fact. Two things that will restrict my ability to practice game design. Of course, it’s tomorrow and then the LD starts on Friday, so idk if I’ll want to do much practicing or just try and sleep 😐

That’s it from me tonight! Going to bed kinda early… I’m eager to see what theme wins!