Hi again folks, Andrew here with the sixth devlog on the game Typr, my brand new project.

For information on what Typr is you can check out the main page here on itch.io, it gives a good representation of what I'm trying to build and hopefully those extravagant devlogs will keep you around!

Links

Discord Server for Active Development: https://discord.gg/nArn9Mk 

 Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/altraydigital/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AltRayDigital

Email: altraydigital@gmail.com

Preface

This week I spent a lot of time on the overall feel of the game by adding sounds to most in-game mechanics such as completing words or paragraphs in Classic Mode. I also tweaked the multiple combinations of background colors and text. I also have a demo video available this week with sound, check it out! <3

Main Features

• Added and tweaked colors
• Added sounds for main mechanics
• Fixed random bugs

Colors 

[Note: The paragraphs in Classic mode are written in Romanian for testing purpose and the reason why they sometimes keep repeating is because there is a very small pool of them, again, for testing purposes.]

After thorough testing, I've noticed that some background/text color combinations didn't go so well. I was happy to see that none of them pose any readability problems and most people I tested with were content with how little the changing colors affected the text's clarity, however, some colors such as dark green for the background presented an issue when combining it with the green color of the correct diamond above the words. So after going through all the colors, I made sure none of them would interfere in such a way with the other elements of the UI. I've also added more colors to the palette, there are now 30 different background colors to go through!

Sounds

Although the game had sound as soon as two weeks ago, it was only for the main menu and nothing else. With this week's update I've added quite a few sounds for the main mechanics of the game such as completing a word, completing a paragraph and typing the wrong letter in a word.

It certainly gives the game a whole new feel as it contributes to the overall experience. There are advantages to having sounds linked to certain mechanics of the game as well. Many of the senior testers I had for the game complained that since a lot of them don't spend that much time around computers they don't necessarily have the same way of typing things and so they cannot see their mistakes as easily when typing a word on the screen. 

For example, my own parents played the game and since they aren't that used to fast typing they usually look at the keyboard instead of looking at the screen when typing. This gave me a clue as to what the game needed in order to provide a fair experience to them as well. After adding the sound cue in that a word has been typed incorrectly, the testers immediately looked at the screen instead of the keyboard and proceeded to promptly fix the error and continue playing. This is miles better compared to the previous iteration of the game, especially for people that aren't used to fast typing.

I've also added a specific sound for when a paragraph is finished. This gives the game a satisfying feel as you complete paragraph after paragraph. 

An interesting design choice I made when it came to the implementation of the sound specific to completing a word in the paragraph was to have the sound increase in pitch the further the player got in the paragraph. So for example, the sound would play at its default pitch for the first completed word in the paragraph and then as the player keeps completing words it would increase in pitch, playing on a higher note each time the player types in a word correctly, culminating in a satisfying sound signaling the completion of the paragraph.

The pitch for the sound resets with each paragraph.

Conclusion

...and this was week six! I can't believe the game is quickly shaping up to release standards! With the progress I'm making I will be sure to have a working demo in the following weeks available to the public so you can test the game first hand! Next week will have a focus on completing the game's audio with background music and ambience as well as further expanding the mechanic audios and if there will be enough time I will also work on the gameplay animations as well such as custom ones when you complete a word correctly or complete a paragraph.

This marked the end of the sixth week of development!

Thank you for reading and see you next time,

Andrew