This week I finished the menus for the demo, re-worked some bosses, did a lot of difficulty balancing, and also added tutorials!

This may be a familiar concept to many, but I’ve built the first level to slowly and (hopefully) organically introduce Bleed 2’s mechanics. In case you don’t know what I mean, check it out:
This is the first, very small area of the game. Wryn wants to run outside and see what’s happening to the city, but this elevator shaft is in the way and needs to be jumped over. It forces the player to either prove they know how to jump, or learn the skill.

In a game with more traditional controls I’d be tempted to leave it as-is and force the player to figure it out, since it’s pretty simple. But I don’t think it’s fair to expect anyone to guess that right trigger is the jump button, and I don’t want to frustrate anyone (especially not at an exhibition.) So, if the player can’t figure it out after a second or two, Wryn pipes up to tell them what the jump button is.

The rest of the level’s first half continues in this way. I try to introduce concepts one-at-a-time, and then incorporate them a few more times later on to keep the idea sticking in the player’s mind. For example, you have to keep jumping over the gaps between buildings (but there are fire escapes that come into view to catch you if you fall!)

I’ve also thrown in a couple mini-bosses to illustrate attack reflecting and bullet-time.

You need to reflect this Invader’s shot back at it to blow off its shield. Once that’s done, it goes down in under a second.

This Invader rolls around and dodges your shots, and bullet-time makes hitting it a lot more manageable. I’m not so sure about this one, since you can beat it without bullet-time… but hopefully it’ll work for most people.

Once all that’s done with, the game is really ready to begin and starts throwing actual bosses and set-pieces at you, like the Blast Jumper and beyond!

I’m really looking forward to seeing how effective the instruction is, and how total first-timers will fare against the rest of the demo. I’m going to have a few Bleed-newbies play the game this week, hopefully I’ll see if any major adjustments need to be made!