Welcome to Gobo Rampage's tenth devlog!

This is the last devlog about our progress as the making of our game comes to an end. This last week we've put in our best efforts, coming together nearly every day to really bring the game together as a whole.

Starting area
For this last week we finally made a "starting area" that can introduce new players to the mechanics without the pressure of adventurers following them around when they're still figuring out the game. There's a small gate blueprint in between the starting area and the main map that closes once crossed. Once you leave the starting area, the inventory, score and health gets reset. The annoyance bar only starts going up once you enter the "real" level so there is no rush to get out and no need to play through it once you understand the game. 

HUD
The start/pause and end screen have been fully rendered out. They've gotten a few revisions to make the color palette fit just right. The background has also been given it's fair share of polishing. The start screen has more vegetation and props, with taking a nice composition in account. The end screen was changed to a night-scene. The new torch blueprints caused some nice contrasts and movement in an otherwise static scene.

Screen fades
A lot of UI blueprinting was put in for more smooth transitions between maps and menus. A looney tunes inspired UI fade-in/out happens whenever you enter or leave a specific screen as the remaining UI fades away. 

Area upgrades
Some last tent and torch models were made to make the starting area feel more of an outskirts area. The torch meshes are accompanied by a flame particle to also be used in darker parts of the village. Due to the starting area looking more like an oasis than our actual oasis, we decided to give it an upgrade. The remaining of the map got some extra attention to make everything flow into each-other.

Items
Prank items and throwables have received their fair share of polishing. Particles for pranking have received some adjustments in color and intensity to fit their respective item better. Just like prank items, throwables rotate and hover to be more visible to the player and give more feedback. More prank items have been added and new particles have been made for those.

Villagers
The association of prank items and their linked villagers wasn't very clear. To solve this, we've made adjustments to the colors of their clothing and edited some outfits. Tailors now have beards and blacksmiths have shoulder pads that fit the color of their items.

Particles and shaders 
To make vegetation feel more alive, a wind effect shader was added to make the once static nature flow with the wind.

A wind trail was added to throwable items for more visibility when the objects are thrown.

The speed particles that appeared behind the goblin were replaced by a trail of clouds. This made everything more natural as the particle became longer with more speed and didn't turn around exactly when the player did.

Sound implementation
Sound is important to indicate and strengthen events and to amplify immersion in the game. We focused on 3 types of sounds: ambience, music and sound effects. In settings, each sound type has their dedicated adjustment slider.

• Ambience:
  We implemented local and non-local sounds. When the player gets close to a waterfall or any surfaces with water, they will be able to hear flowing. The closer the player gets, the louder the sounds become. For more immersion, the player will hear the sounds more on a certain side of their ear/headphones depending on where they stand.
  An oasis will have sounds like the chirping of birds and rustling of leaves. The player can hear the faint sound of wind blowing all throughout the game. 
• Music:
  To fit the theme of Gobo Rampage's environment, we implemented a mix of Middle-Eastern music. We arranged it so the start and end screens would have slow paced, soft music that would contrast the upbeat in-game music. Thanks to all tracks using a few similar instruments, we managed to make them fit together as a whole.
• Sound Effects:
  Naturally, the most amount of sounds that were implemented were sound effects. We configured multiple sounds that are linked to animations. We did this for when the adventurer slashes with their sword and when the goblin runs. This allowed us to perfectly time each sound and automatically shorten the distance/overlap when motions are sped up.
  This was especially important for our goblin. When the player gets a speed-boost, the animation would speed up along with the pace of its sound. We also implemented that the goblin keeps track of if he's walking on the ground or in water and on which of those surfaces he jumps. 
  Item-wise, there are pick-up sounds differing between throwables and prank items. When a prank item is used, it will be accompanied to a sound unique to the item and a voice line of the goblin. To indicate the player did epic prank, the goblin's voice line will change to laughter. Many more sounds have been added individually or stacked together to give more of an impact. 

Difficulty increase
A multiplier was created for the guards' view-radius so it gets bigger every new stage. It was made separate so the adventurer's speed could stay the same.  During the last stage the speed of the adventurers increases every 30 seconds as the guar's radius also grows in size. We made it this way so you can still have a chance to survive for as long as you can until adventurers will inevitably catch up to you.

Fixes and small additions
There were persistent issues with the closest indicator and the accuracy of throwables, so a lot of code was rewritten to fully comb any bugs out. The throwable no longer collides with the player but follows the target until it hits something. When a throwable was thrown towards an adventurer, all adventurers in a close radius will get stunned. This now also happens when one is thrown at a guard. They also have a bigger collision radius to make it easier for pick-up.
Lastly, some adjustments have been made to the timing and speed of certain animations along with the goblin no longer sliding over the ground when a throwable is thrown.

Our final build is up for download, feel free to play it and let us know what you think.

Thank you for the much appreciated feedback and support!