As you might guess from the first half of title, I worked on the extra modes this week! Here’s the Arcade Mode menu in all its glory. (For anyone who’s not familiar, Arcade Mode tasks you with beating the game on one life, to compete on the leaderboards for score and time.)

There weren’t many single large tasks that took up development time here. Rather, it was a ton of little things. In Arcade Mode, tutorials aren’t shown, cutscenes are shortened, intermissions are skipped, scoring is tracked and saved differently, restrictions are enforced depending on the game mode, etc etc etc. What seems like a million tiny details — I really hope I caught them all.

The only semi-large items to take care of were health pickups and menus. The menu above isn’t too intense, but you gotta have a screen for beating Arcade Mode, too!

If I get time, I want to have an image of Wryn (or whatever character you used) in a victory pose on the right. It’s a bit empty without it!

Also, health pickups are finally in the game! You can also see a timer on the HUD, which can be enabled from the Arcade Menu above.

I had time left over after completing Arcade Mode, so I turned to Challenge Mode (where you pick up to three bosses to fight at once.)

Here’s where the second half of the blog title comes in — I almost scrapped Challenge Mode entirely. Not because it was hard to do (I did it all yesterday!) or because it wasn’t fun (it’s pretty fun in bursts!) but because it’s just so janky.

I’ve worked really hard to give Bleed 2 as high a production value as I could, and Challenge Mode just runs straight opposite that. The bosses aren’t designed to be fought all together like this. Some of them have massive exploits when they aren’t fought in specific conditions, and many combinations are completely unfair, if not impossible. Additionally, the mode is pretty removed from the meat of the game, and I worried it’d make Bleed 2 as a whole seem unfocused, and bring it down.

Well, it might be the wrong decision from an artistic perspective, but you what? Whatever! It’s staying in. It’s just a fun, simple extra, and (as a friend pointed out) another way for people who like the game to spend a little more time with it. It’s also totally bananas and chaotic, which is fun in its own way.

With this new mindset, I’m pushing for maximum possible jankiness in Challenge Mode. Not all bosses will be able to appear, but if it’s even moderately appropriate, you’ll be able to pick them (or three of them!) to fight. Right now it’s looking like at least 16 of the bosses will be selectable (with around 25 total in the regular game.) Whew!

I acknowledge the jankiness, but I am improving it where possible! You can see the boss health bar gets additional layers for each boss, so you can better appreciate the damage you’re doing. There’s also a brief moment before the fight begins so you can see where the bosses will spawn, instead of just being haphazardly dropped in with them.

I’m still working on Challenge Mode, but I don’t want to spend more than another day or two on it. Basically, I’m gonna make some arenas and call it roughly done! At least this way, some of the tilesets I made for Endless Mode will get to see a little use.

That’s quite enough out of me for now. Next week I’ll finish Challenge Mode and start on making the unlockable characters!