Poetry Slammers V5 -- Tales of Oddity Shops and Social Sharing

At first glance the patch notes for version five of Poetry Slammers don't seem all that large, but the pipeline for creating a new campaign circuit was deepening quite a bit. Whenever I added a new circuit, the following had to be created:

• A campaign strip with three new venues
• Separated building icons for each new venue
• One themed exterior background
• One themed interior background
• 15 new puzzles (five for each venue)
• A new judge character
• A new speaking animation set for the judge
• A new slammer variant skin of the judge
• A new speaking, idle, and victory animation of this slammer variant
• New Judge reactions for poems rated 0-5 stars, reactions for not meeting the judge's challenge, reactions for meeting the judge's challenge, reaction for going into happy tears overflow.
• A new squishmello variant of the slammer
• Sometimes a new music track for the circuit

I didn't let that stop me from building an even larger pipeline for making a new circuit though . . . and as you'll see with future builds, that trend continues.

Mystic Curiosities, of course the owner wants to hear your poetry, my moody friend.

For the Oddity Shop circuit, Gingrr was based after another friend of mine at work, she has long red hair and loves the type of stuff you'd find in an oddity shop . . . little rocks, charms, and animal skulls. I ended up making Gingrr a kind of gothic looking werewolf. I doubled down and made this area have its own theme music as well. 

Gingrr loves adverbs like "happily"

This build was also the start of social sharing. I knew that what people are really going to want from this game is the ability to share their poems with others . . . and honestly, I figure it's my best shot at this game getting any kind of word of mouth. 

To encourage that, I added two ways to share. The first is a share button to the poetry making phase so you could grab a snapshot of your current board and share that out as a screenshot. The second was from the Wall of Fame. I added share button for each venue so you could share your favorite poem with a special squishmello variant of the skin you're wearing.

Squishmello Deej busting out poetry in a curiosity shop

Below are the complete patch notes for Version 5 of Poetry Slammers:

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Poetry Slammers v0.5 -- Oddity Shop Circuit & Social Sharing Update

• Welcome to the Oddity Shops!
• Added the new Oddity Shop campaign circuit, including 3 more shops and 15 more puzzles.
• Slam your poems in a new campaign-map exterior and performance-stage interior for the circuit.
• Meet  Gingrr, a red-haired wolf poet with a fondness for skulls, black roses, and dramatic verse. Gingrr is the new Oddity Shop judge and becomes unlockable after completing the circuit. Tread lightly, she loves adverbs!
• Social Sharing 
• There are now two places and two different ways to share your poetry
• Introducing Fridge Magnet Poem sharing!
• While constructing your Magnet poems, you'll find a new share button. When you click that button, your poem will be staged on one of ten randomly selected fridge/freezer backgrounds.
• Introducing Wall of Fame sharing!
• After you've favorited a poem and it shows up on your Wall of Fame, you'll now find a sharing button for each poem. When you click that button, you'll receive a photo card of your poem being slammed by a fun squishmello variant of your currently equipped poetry slammer skin along with the shop that poem represents.
• Two ways to share!
• Windows captures save to the Poetry Slammers folder in the standard pictures folder.
• Android uses the native share sheet for sending poem images to apps such as Discord or your favorite social media platform.
• Audio
• Added optional per-circuit Campaign Map music overrides.
• Circuits without a custom assignment continue using the default campaign music.
• Oddity Shop now uses its own spooky music track.

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With version five out of the way, version six would set up a whole new side mode that featured a brand-new way to play the game. More on that tomorrow!

Happy Dueling!