Today for my beta build I'll try to name everything I changed but it's difficult because I've added a lot in the last two weeks! Some changes are behind the scenes and some are more obvious. First, I knew I needed to change the boomerang mechanics. Last build I ignored it but not this time. The boomerang needed to be clicked twice to shoot because of a collider problem, but that's fixed. But the most important and valuable change to the game came after a playtester made a very revealing comment. In my head I knew the boomerang was magnetic, that's why it can pick up things. But the playtester said he didn't understand that and nothing told him its a magnet. He was very right and he made me realize I needed to make some big changes. So for the art I updated some things, such as actually coloring the main character, but more importantly, I changed the boomerang. I changed it so its a little more reminiscent of a magnet. And now certain objects will get slightly pulled towards/attracted to the boomerang, just like a magnet. The boomerang also had many other background changes to picking things up and dropping and movement to make it more consistent and less prone to bugs, such as the one that launched it thousand of units away.

For the player I messed around a lot with movement, I used velocity instead of adding force and kept tweaking to make it feel much better.

This build also adds many more mechanics, such as moving platforms, an enemy that slows down the player (that was cut last update), fire, buttons, teleporting, bombs, platforms you can grab, breakable blocks, respawning and possibly more. I wanted to come into this with the idea that I would focus on quantity over quality. This was a beta build that needed to be mostly complete, but I just couldn't. Every time I found a bug or thing that bothered me, I had to fix it because a. I didn't want to forget, b. I couldn't help it, and c. I knew I could fix it. As I said last time I'm a stubborn programmer, if I think I can do it I will. I also added a nice controls screen that shows off the updated sprites.

Here's a screenshot showing off the new background and enemy design, along with a battery that's charging up.

Two playtesters really helped me with this build. One played got far into the game (until he got stuck from a bug) and seemed to really enjoy it. He kept complimenting my game while also playing it in ways I didn't expect. It felt really good watching him play through it and even more so when a person watching said it was the most complicated game in the class. That's really what I wanted to make with this game. As a programmer I love focusing on a main mechanic and playing with it, but here I wanted to focus on the interactions between mechanics. Something as simple as grabbing and dropping has a lot of possibility and I wanted to se how far I could take it. The other playtester is my brother, who has shown a lot of patience with me which I really appreciate it. For some reason when he plays ALL the bugs show up. It's really annoying because I want him to enjoy the game I made, but it's been very helpful because it shows me what I have to fix. And the way he handled the second level was really interesting and showed that player freedom that I thought lacked in my game.

With that let's talk about level 2. I already had it designed but I didn't get a chance to put it into the game. I told myself making levels would be the easiest part, but it turned out it was possibly the hardest. Sure the boomerang alone took the most time but that's the main mechanic. Making a new level means placing down the walls and ground which is easy, but then you have to make sure everything is correctly scaled. You can drop down some prefabs, but they need to make sense on screen. And then you also have to build all the mechanics and make sure those work. With this second screen I liked the idea of dropping the player and overwhelming them. They now understand the basics of the game so I don't need to focus on that, I can now explore new mechanics. For each level I wanted to start with a "locked" section, where a new mechanic is introduced and the player has to learn it while being unable to move. This forces them to think only with their boomerang. And although it may look intimidating at first, it's a quite simple puzzle once you actually play with it.

Puzzle games have to strike a very light balance between complicated and difficult, and I think I've achieved that here. The locked sections allows for an easier difficultly that doesn't feel abrupt while then expanding to a more difficult and interesting section. 

Here is the rest of the second level. Although it looks quite barren (because it is) my brother agreed it was interesting to navigate. Because movement is slightly slow and the boomerang limits you to one thing at the time, something like this takes longer. Even getting to a different area is a puzzle in it of itself and I think this level shows that really well. I think this second level is better designed than the first, but it shows the assets I still need to make for the game.

Sadly with how much time is left and with my lack of knowledge with animating in Unity, I don't think I'll be adding animations to my game. As much as I would like to, deciding what will and won't have animations is difficult and I think the game works fine without them. The game does now have sounds! I think they work well for what's here. But it does turn out you can't just put a jump sound when jumping apparently. Next I will need to focus on the style of music I want for my game and looking for that, copyright free of course. I ran into many bugs this iteration again. 
Level 3 is designed I just need to put it into the game (like that will be easy). And I realized I won't have time for a boss, but I will for one more level. I want to deliver the promise of making a unique and interesting level that takes everything in the game into one package. I want to make the level multi step and difficult. Even if no one plays it or reaches it, for my own sake, I want to know I did it. There's still a lot of work to be done but I'm excited, because I got a lot of foundation out of the way and all that's left is for me to design the experience I want to give. This has been a great journey thus far and I'm proud of how far the game has gone.