We kicked off our first week of the second production sprint.
This sprint is the last sprint that we add extra features to the game, so expect to see a lot of gameplay and visual changes.

We will first start off with the features we already had.

• Rotation

Last week, we made significant changes to the player rotation. This week, we adapted and fine-tuned these previous changes.
The first rotation method is left unchanged, you still rotate in the direction you are moving to and additionally you can change your rotation with the right joystick whenever you want to.

The second rotation method however, we did change a bit. In the seconds method, your character looks at a fixed position, this position was located on a semi circle on the opponent's side. From this week on, you can move this "aim point" freely on the enemies side instead of the fixed semi circle.

• Pickup

Previously, you had to press a button to pick up the ball, this has now been changed to reduce unnecessary complexity. You now automatically pick up the ball when you are close enough. This also quickens the pace of our game, which we are aiming for.

• Conveyor Belt

The conveyor belt is now ready and used ingame. It can move items that are bought from the shop, in the correct direction, which is based on which team buys the item.

• Shop

The big feature that was added this week is the shop, the shop is a key mechanic that is essential for implementing other features. 

The shop holds an array of items, ordered at random, that are equal for both teams. Players can cycle through this shop but they can only buy the first item. Whenever an item gets bought, it dissapears from the shop for both teams.

When a player buys an item, it spawns on the correct side of the conveyor belt, the side depends on which team bought the item.
Players can pick up this item when they are standing near it. There are no visuals yet for items in your inventory, these will be added later on.

• Fire ball

Our first buyable item is the fire ball power up. 
When the power up is activated your ball becomes a flaming meteorite, this meteorite deals more damage than a regular ball. The power up deactivates when the "ball" bounces once.

With the creation of the fire ball, the foundation has been layed down to implement other types of balls, this won't be too hard because there is shared functionality between the fire ball and other types of balls.

• Menu Screens

We are planning to implement menus next week, that is why our artists have worked on the visuals already, so no delays will pop up between creating the visuals and implenting them in Unreal Engine 4. 
We will create a start menu, a team-pick menu, a controls menu, a pause menu and a victory screen, all of these have been imported to Unreal and are ready to be used. 

• Sounds

This sprint is also the sprint that we start adding in sounds.
We realise that sound is important for player feedback and also for creating the game's atmosphere, that is why we do not take it lightly and really put in enough effort to hit the sweet spot.
For this week we added footstep sounds when the player moves and also ambient sound to further immerse the player into the game.