Un-Glitch version 0.7: polishing and prospective improvements

Hi all!

Preparations for the first major version of Un-Glitch are rapidly concluding alongside the lowrez jam. In this devlog I will give some behind-the-scenes view for several changes and thoughts going forward. Ultimately, the scope of this project is small, but I want to do a good job in polishing details.

Changelog

• Improved keyboard controls. Somehow I was always testing with mouse controls, which have more stable pathfinding. If possible (nobody can say for sure with bugs), I want to remove the small occasional jitter when using the arrow keys to try to move diagonally, and add keyboard controls to the main menu.
• After some playtester feedback, I added text-FX (and the option to turn it off). Basically, acquiring glitch fixes or building effects creates a small text to let you know what exactly happened.
• Added a glitch fixing animation. Just a basic jump to give a 3D feeling, because there was no emmiter for glitch fixing previously.
• Changed how timers display in a 0:00 format. I am not fully certain that I achieved the look I wanted, though, because stages rarely last for more than a minute. That said, I am considering increasing the number of glitch fixes needed to clear each stage, as the game becomes more and more interesting as more time passes and the player acclimates to the stage. Having a stage clear duration for new players of approximately 1:30 minute (instead of the current approximate 0:50 for the harder stages) would be good I think. Of course, this needs to be balanced against each stage being repetitive.
• Created an introductory animation. I am thinking of somehow incorporating some sfx and strory elements to the animation to improve engagement.
• Revamped the esthetics of game over and victory menus. Time and best time announcements are now easier to parse. These menus may require additional improvement.

Remaining ideas

I am considering more things too. These may not necessarily be added, because they require additional stages to introduce and may oversaturate the players - do tell me if you think some of these are cool:

• More stages, especially stages involving other AI-controlled pedestrians. Mechanics for this are already in place (and kinda prepared since pedestrians can turn into glitches like the player upon death, but will be restored normally), but additional design is required to create interesting yet simple on-touch interactions between the player and them. As a sidenote, adding other pedestrians makes level design trickier, because they can block the player's path.
• A glitch type that turns buildings walk-through for a period of time. The actuall issue with this is what to do when buildings become solid again and the player gets trapped.
• Teleoporter buildings. Random teleportation would be performed between all other teleporters, but I am not sure if they would bring something interesting to the gameplay.
• Unfixable hazards. I have already implemented this, but did not includ it in any stage, because it changes the gameplay a lot and I did not have the space for its introduction.
• Glitched robots to chase the player around. Actually, this was the first mechanic I wanted to make, but then glitch fixing was so addictive I ended up focusing on that.