There's been a lot of progress on Light Rush this semester with controller support, new stages, behind-the-scenes upgrades (Unreal Engine 5!), and 2 new friends joining the fray: Jolt and Strawberry. In this post, we'll cover what's new, what's changed, and what's currently planned for the future.
Woo, new friends!
With Light Rush being a multiplayer title, it didn't make sense to have only 2 characters, so Spark and Berry got some new friends: Jolt and Strawberry! These 2 characters were originally temporary alt colors of our studio's Spark and Berry, but the team decided to make them permanent fixtures of the roster.
And new stages!
We've got 2 new stages: say hello to Forest River and Mines! High Street underwent some remodeling as well.
It's time for upgrades.
We decided to jump from Unreal Engine 4 to 5 this semester. This would be the part where we go on and on about Nanite and Lumine if we were using them, but we aren't. However, we updated to the Enhanced Input system partly to save ourselves from a headache later when the old input system is deprecated and to simplify player inputs. The UI got a fresh look as we redid the main and options menu, added a stage select screen, and updated the in-game UI for 4 players.
So, what's next?
Light Rush is starting to enter the latter part of its development, with most of the game almost complete. However, there are still a few things left that we plan to implement for the game to be feature-complete.
A character selection screen (and the ability to choose how many players)
A cooldown on the player's ability to throw the light
Full controller support across both gameplay and menus
And something we'd love to be able to add hopefully...
Online Multiplayer
but no promises on this one as we've never done it before.
That's everything new with Light Rush from this semester. We hope you're looking forward to playing this fun little party game in the future.