Poetry Slammers V2 -- The Game finds its Voice

Continuing the patch note review for my upcoming game release of Poetry Slammers!

Three days after the first prototype, I was ready with more changes to share! Below are the patch notes for Version 2 (and Version 2.5). 

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Update notes V.002

• Character voices have been added! 
• Hear your Slammers speak.
• Updated "choose your Slammer" screen. Be sure to hit that "Mic check!" button to hear the voice that goes along with your selected skin.
• Reset button
• On the bottom left of the start screen you'll find a button to reset your play data to start a fresh new game. (will be removed for the full version of the game)
• Updated header. 
• Two new icons were added so that you can view your favorited poem and return to the identity screen.  
• There's also a running total of your stars you've earned and can now spend.
• When you first unlock a new coffee shop in the campaign map, a "now open" UI floats above it.
  New "Hint" button added to word creation screen. If you have stars to spend, you can trade a star for a hint to a word you may have missed.
• More free word tiles and punctuation tiles have been added. The intent is to give you more standard words to help flesh out your creations.
• New "Buy a 10-cent word" button. If you have stars to spend, you can trade a star for a special flowery word to really sell your poem. 
• These new words have a flashy label and appear in the new top magnet tray above the magnet board.
• Improved Poem performance!  
• After pressing the perform button, you'll find yourself on a stage, the lights dim, and a spotlight softly covers you in light. 
• You'll hear and see your slammer deliver their poem. 
• The lights come back on, and your judge gives their reaction, and you are awarded with stars for your performance.
• New interiors have been added to match the campaign you're currently in.
• New Library circuit
• 15 more puzzles to solve has been added
• Meet Styx, the wise judge of the library.
• Wall of Fame
• The Wall of Fame showing your favorite poem has a new look for your favorited poems.
• The shop your poem is displayed at, along with your poem and its star rating sit upon a label. 
• Scroll through your favorites here!

Update notes v.0025

• Android Build now available -- some minor graphic glitches but should work!

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I was so happy with the feedback from the first prototype that I was on fire and worked pretty hard to get a second version of the game out there to my friends and family ASAP. The base version of the game was working, but it was important to make this feel better in places where it came up short in the prototype. 

After playing the first prototype, it was pretty obvious that it was a MORAL IMPERATIVE that I add character voices and really improve the whole poetry performance phase. To those ends I started looking around at what was available in the Unity store and found a really good deal on an Animal Crossing-esque voice module and integrated it into the game. Adding a voice to the characters alone made them feel much more charming.

With that, it also became apparent that I couldn't just show the character reading the poem while the score was already showing. The performance phase needed some timing and pacing to make it feel fun. There needed to be the whole feeling of lights dimming, a spotlight shines on the character, they deliver the poem, the judge reacts, etc.

100 percent more presentation

Also, from the time I first thought of this idea, I knew I wanted to incorporate the ability to buy really fancy words. I remember being in poetry class back in college in the 90's and my professor introduced me to the term "10 cent words." As it was explained to me, poets that tried to get their poems published in newspapers and magazines used to look for the flowery words that publishers drooled over. In essence, poems that had "10 cent words" would make the publication sell better. So I added a special sticker for words that you could buy with stars and added a few dozen over-the-top words.

Buy ALL the 10 cent words!

At the time "stars" earn from making poems was the only available currency and actually worked pretty nicely here. After performing a couple poems, you had enough stars to start asking for hints when you were stuck making anagrams on the Magnet Maker and using stars to buy those fancy words for your fridge magnet poetry. This also gave extra motivation to try to earn more stars on your poems. (At the time, stars were only based on the number of words you used. In current builds, scoring has more logic to it.)

I also needed a place to keep and store your favorite poems, so the concept of the "Wall of Fame" emerged. Now you could play through five levels of a venue and end up choosing your favorite poem to "live" on the wall of that venue.

Finally, the idea of a campaign circuit and needing levels to play started to take shape. You start your adventures in the Coffee Shop circuit where you play through three coffee shop venues with five levels each.  After the coffee shop circuit came the Record Shop circuit. With the second build of the game I added the Library circuit. 

I'll just be reading poetry to Styx over here in the library

All of these circuits also have a poetry judge that represents them. In the Coffee Shop venues, you'll be judged by Feelixs the Beatnik Cat. In the Record Shop, you'll be judged by Claups, the soulful, one-eyed alien. With the library also came Styx, a crazy pink bird that also plays the drums besides chilling in the library.

Behind the scenes I also had AI helping me create a tool to make and import puzzle data. If it sounds like a lot of work for three days, it was, but like I said, I was on fire. Three days after that, version 3 was ready to rock . . . more on that tomorrow.

Happy dueling!