In this occasion I don't have much to write down about Afterlife Gladiator because I spent a significant amount of time during the last 2 weeks working on new content that will hopefully be ready in time for next Demo Days and I also happened to catch some sort of rotavirus that rendered me unable to work during the weekend.

Regardless of that I made some progress that I consider noteworthy. In the first place, there is now an optional combat tutorial that teaches the absolute basics and can be accessed from the main hub in-between rounds.

I intended the game to be easy to understand, but that was a one-size-fits-all measure. There's still some stuff that might require further clarification, but I'm satisfied for now. 

In second place I have created some simple animations for all usable items in the hopes of squeezing just a little bit of juice out of the system. The combat journal now also display a more relevant and descriptive message depending on the item. Enjoy this crappy gif where Haydn partially obscures the animation.

If you are familiar with the game and posses a high degree of perception then you probably realized that the HP and MP bars have a different look and animation as well. Things like adding an outline and a proper animation to such an important UI element should be as basic as it gets, but it's easy to underestimate how deliberate video game development is. Even bugs have to be implemented if you think about it, unwillingly for sure, but still.

The numbers in the HUD also roll up and down realistically instead of just updating at the end of the animation like before. Saving the player that 0.4 seconds each time adds up over the course of the game.

Finally, tonight I find myself questioning why I even write these devlogs, this one being number 16. I have kept a private log for over a year now so they don't really accomplish much in the way of documentation. If I remember correctly I was hoping that making something public consistently would motivate me to keep working, but obviously that can't be the case since my audience only exists in my imagination and it's not like anyone can hold me accountable but myself. Anyway, it's something to think about.

For the next devlog I'll probably have a localization in Spanish, at least for the first 5 levels. I've been suffering from writing-related problems lately so this is a good chance to check on my own work. Besides that I'll probably work on new content.

That's all I had for today. I doubt any mortals will ever read these words but thank you for reading this far and I hope to see you again in 2 weeks.

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