Hello again Daveworks fans!

As we near closer to the release of HoloRaid, we wanted to share some more information.  First off, a reminder that the game comes out on April 19th! That same day will be the Florida Poly Game Expo, happening on campus starting at 10am. We would love to see you there and try the game in person to let us know what you think, as well as try the games from our peers!

With that out of the way, we want to talk about something interesting we encountered in the development of this project. Because HoloRaid tries to simulate systems from beloved, large scale MMO games, we wanted to stay true to the formula of the genre while keeping the game brief and simple. We found that concepting and programming classes with meaningful differences while only having so few skills proved to be a challenge, especially when the abilities of the characters can interact with each other for buffs and support.  Take Elizabeth, our "tank" character, for example: she builds up a unique heat meter that allows her to shorten her cooldown times and deal more damage quicker. However she needs to spend this resource before overheating or else the opposite will happen. One skill she can use to do this is her defensive, which spends heat to give invulnerability to nearby allies. This invulnerability trigger made us learn about collision layers to make sure only the right characters benefitted from this, also resulting in players not colliding with each other.

Another interesting part was the shop. We found it difficult to implement a shared stock in the store for a few reasons including synchronization and balance, so we decided to make it so that each player has their own shop instead, and that players can also get the same item multiple times. Though players will need to be careful, as they can only carry up to ten items at once. Choose wisely!

We are very excited to get the game in people's hands and know what you think, as well as hear about the crazy combinations you find!