Progress Update - Animations, Aerial Combat and Charge Attacks

For the past few days, I've been making some improvements to The Outbreak Story's gameplay based on feedback I'd received from testers and people who played the demo. Here's some of those improvements!

I added an animation of Noah reaching for his guns and grabbing them before he starts to shoot enemies. This makes it feel a lot smoother.
​(check the original tweet here)

I also started working on aerial combat. There were some issues at first, but after receiving some feedback from Impossible Realms (check out her Twitter here), I managed to fix most of them.

When hitting an enemy in the air, it cancels your fall for 1 frame.
(check the original tweet here)

I wasn't happy with it yet, though. There was an animation bug (which is visible in the above GIF) and, because the first frame of each attack also cancels your fall, it was possible to exploit the air combo mechanic to "glide" through the air for long distances. This would cause issues in dungeons, which rely more on platforming mechanics than the overworld areas, so I had to do something about it.

The solution I came up with goes as follows: when finishing an air combo, there would be a short cooldown period where you would fall down and couldn't start another air combo. However, when the finishing attack hits an enemy, it cancels this cooldown period, allowing you to chain combos as long as you keep hitting the enemy.

This solution works pretty well, in my opinion.
(check the original tweet here)

I also added a charge attack into the game. While I'm not fully satisfied with it yet, I think it's pretty decent. I'll probably keep tweaking it in the future.

(check the original tweet here)

And that's it for now!

If you've made it this far and are reading this, thanks a lot! Please consider following me on Twitter (@BasMakesGames) or checking out the demo for the game on Itch.io or GameJolt. If you would like to get in touch, become a tester or get notified whenever I post something about the game including progress updates, join the Discord.

Greetings, and stay safe!
​-Bas