The completion of the demo is nearly here. The boss fight was the source of some of the last 2018 prototype code still present in the game's repository. The playtesters who made it this far probably noticed some bugs when you actually fought the boss. To summarize a long story short, I eliminated about 50% of the boss' code, and it actually ran better. It was genuinely that bad. There were tons of unnecessary variables, lots of repeated code, and a total lack of good coding practices. 

In a few hours of focused coding, I completely rewrote a good portion of the code and spent a lot of time undoing the spaghetti logic that existed in those old files. I also undid a lot of tangled dependencies and simplified the flow of logic between the boss and attacks. I also implemented a proper state machine as well, something I will use in future enemies and bosses.

I also completely redid how the Feat system was constructed. In a previous devlog I covered the kind of technical debt that was inherited from the 2018 prototype. The feat system wasn't quite as bad, but it still used the 2-D array system that just wasn't that good. I completely re-did it and turned it into a constructor-based system, which will make things much easier for me in the future. I was able to eliminate a LOT of scripts in the process.

Fixing an issue with the boss' Slow effect carrying over if you reloaded the game also led me down a path that wound up completely fixing how the player's speed is determined. This resulted in a substantial simplification and the elimination of a global variable.

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Here's a full list of all the changes that were made for this patch:

-Rewrote much of the boss' AI. The boss should no longer get confused as to which state she is in.

-Fixed a crash that resulted from parrying some of the boss' projectiles.

-Fixed a problem where your speed would remain slow if you died and reloaded while the boss' slow effect was active.

-Fixed an issue where you would instantly take damage once the boss summoned an enemy; you now only take damage when the enemy is fully summoned.

-Fixed a visual bug where if you sold equipped armor, it would appear to remain equipped until you left the store.

-Added dynamic layering to the boss.

-Fixed an issue with some music briefly starting up even if the music volume was muted.

-Added in room transitions.

-Finished the pedestal sprite in the Teleporter room, and added some color to the Enemy Information console.

-Various other small sprite fixes/enhancements.

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I'll be writing another post soon illustrating what is left, and the estimated completion time for the demo's final release. Some of the changes will be visual, and others will be internal changes that will greatly help me add new content in the future.