Next weekend I’ll be showing Bleed 2 at Bit Bazaar in Toronto — my second exhibition ever! I thought I’d spend the week making the game sexier and fixing some of the problems I noticed last time I exhibited.

Most importantly, I changed the tutorials to be visual and animated. I noticed a lot of people missing or misunderstanding them last time, and I think this makes things pretty clear cut.

I beefed up the size of the pistol bullets. It’s a small change but they feel much more powerful now! Last time I exhibited, some players totally missed that the pistols were even firing, which should have clued me in that they felt piddly right there.

I changed how particles work. Now they’re divided into two layers — one draws on front of the action, the other draws behind. There’s a lot of particles in some cases, like when Wryn air-dashes, and it was easy to lose her in all the effects. Now she draws on top of them so you have a much better idea of what’s going on.

Speaking of particles, I also tried my hand at making explosions more organic.

And finally, I’m trying out this full-screen effect, which will be reserved for delivering the final hit to an end-of-level boss.

So it’s a lot of small changes, but they were things I’d been wanting to fix for a long time, and I had them all done within a day or two of starting the week.

After that I began a mad dash to create this giant Bleed 2 poster to sell at the exhibition, which will ideally double as the game’s box art. It’s taking forever! Since I’ll be busy demoing the game next Sunday, I’ll probably post the boxart then along with some process shots (as if I’m a professional artist, haha) instead of any in-depth blogging!