This week we have made a lot of mileage on the level and it's decoration! We noticed that the level still felt too plain and needed lots more vegetation, lush colors and more variety in plant sizes. As we really wanted to make this world feel like an alien jungle planet, the decoration of the level is important. More vegetation was added, extra rocks and pebbles scattered around the ground and the river was made to look more natural. A small problem we encountered was that the slopes of the level were unclear to the players. They did not understand very well whether they could just walk up the slopes, or jump from platform to platform. We found some creative ways to solve those issues by using rocks as a guideline.  We also fixed some stretching issues and clipping issues in the textures and vegetation and overall, made the level as a whole feel much more lush. 

A comparison to last week! Much improvement.

We also made the space ship this week! Since this ship is the center of the level, and the gathering hub for the players, it was important to spend some time on it and really make it look good. We made one destroyed version of the ship, and one repaired version, which appears as soon as all the items have been collected! If we happen to have any time left near the deadline, then we want to make more in-between versions of the ship, so that every time an item is added to the ship, it upgrades visually.

Lastly, art wise, we have made a start on making the enemy creatures! It was important that the enemies look very distinguishable from the main characters. They have some rounded-off shapes around the corners, so that they fit the overall style of the game, but their shape language is very different. Where the main characters are mainly bubbly, circular shapes, we wated to make the enemies more "crawly" and insect-like with multiple legs sticking out. On the back of these creatures, big leaves grow so that they really feel like they belong in this lush environment. We will be making 2 types of enemies: meelee and ranged. Their base models will stay the same due to time restrictions, but their textures will make them distinguishable.