Post-Jam Refresh

 

I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who played and enjoyed Hit Me, Bartender!, a game made for the third s&box game jam. We reached 8th place during the first round of nominations and I couldn't be happier about it.

This is the first game I've ever released after spending roughly 4,500+ hours in this engine alone, not even counting time spent in unity or Godot! I feel so good about myself and my skills, it's bolstered my confidence a lot and made me reconsider the true quality of my work. So again, thank you all so much. Especially big thanks to Facepunch, and the s&box team in general, for the opportunity to make games on their platform.

The reception to Hit Me, Bartender! has been phenomenal and I have huge plans for it going forward. Here's a view into what's been worked on, improved, and changed since the initial release on s&box. I think you're all going to like what you have to see, and feel free to join the discord if you'd like to discuss about the game or leave some feedback!

The initial release left a lot undesired for UI, half-baked menus, unintuitive menus, and generally sloppy presentation.

I've been working to fix that.

Game UI as it releasedGame UI after this update

I think this is a huge improvement to game's overall look, it obviously isn't final but it's a big step in the right direction to make it actually look like a "game".

In addition to that I've also completely reworked leaderboards, which I think looks especially lovely.

If you've played much before you may have noticed some new previously unseen UI elements in the main menu. That leads into the next big additions.

I'm extremely happy with how this turned out.

The unlocks screen was rough and the most unfinished part of the game. It was ugly, unclear, and didn't do what it needed to. I'm really happy that I've been able to give it such a cool face-lift.

The upgrades, referred to as drinks, still need a lot of rebalancing and care put into them, but that's for next update. Balancing is hard when you're not even very good at your own game, but I'm lucky to have a few people who really enjoy Hit Me, Bartender!, which I think will help a lot with feedback.


I've also realized that the game felt really empty. Obviously it felt more like a tech demo than game due to the circumstances, so to try and remedy that I've bundled 3 new categories alongside the upgrades to flesh it out more.

I'm testing out adding more variety to runs by letting the player equip different sets of gloves, I have some fun ideas on how to take this further, but that'll be for after this update. Currently there's not much visual indication of the different gloves you're wearing, but that's soon to change. Stay tuned!

 

A combat focused game gets boring really fast if there's only a couple of fighters. I was crunched for time especially when it comes to modelling more than one (as I'm the sole 3D modeller alongside being the only programmer), so I plan to add a lot more in the near future. Again, the amount of ideas I have are insane and I hope to be able to show off my true vision of the game during it's lifetime.

Currently, there's no new models for the new fighters, but you can try them out early for now and give them a test run.

 

This is a precursor to real  s&box achievement integration, I obviously don't want to start adding actual achievements before the game is ready in case I need to tweak or change them in future patches. Keep in mind that these are subject to change, however I will try my best not to ever invalidate your stats or accomplishments during future updates to Hit Me, Bartender.

You can now challenge your friends online to a 1v1!

To be as straight forward as possible; this is an extremely early addition to the game and may have some issues.

I'm in little in over my head when it comes to networking, but I really think it could be fun. Especially since integrating fair networking to fighting/pvp games, in general, is apparently a known pain in the ass. The game was half-built with this addition in mind but I never really future-proofed it and the project reflected that greatly!

A lot of stuff has been rewritten to make this work, and even though it's been a huge headache, it's absolutely worth it.

Some day proper online matchmaking will be added, but that's secondary to the core of the game. I hope it's enjoyable enough for now anyways! 

I'm fortunate enough to have tuned gameplay enough to already be really fun and satisfying, but it definitely still has some must needed tweaks.

 
Here's how the updated UI for combat looks now!

(This is highly subject to change!)


I've reworked the stamina wheel to be more meaningfully compact and display relevant information clearly. Stars are displayed directly under the wheel and your health is now much closer for reading it easier.

Running out of stamina and trying to attack while over-exerted caused you to stun yourself, that no longer happens happens, instead you will attack and move significantly slower when in the red.

The directional indicator also now snaps to 4 directions instead of freely circling around the stamina wheel. A surprising amount of players either didn't use the directional indicator at all or know what it did, which is wild to me!

It indicates which hand you're going to attack based on mouse/right thumb stick movement.

I plan to make this even more clear in the next update, but I hope people figure it out a bit sooner now.

I'm aware a good chunk of people don't really like the tutorial and coach in general, I've tried to adjust it to be much less intrusive and annoying. He no longer shows any tips during rounds past the first introductory one, and is much more concise with his information.
(You can turn the coach tips off in game options)

I've reduced the amount of useless information during combat as well. Damage numbers appear when giving out hits but also used to show "MISS", "STAR PUNCH" and other redundant text. In theory I thought it was fun, but it's just visual clutter in reality.

The robot grunt was the harbinger of death when the game first came out and was incredibly annoying to fight against, so I've fixed that as well. 

There's been too many random internal tweaks to list but the game is much, MUCH, more fair towards the player. A few changes I'll list here anyway are:

I definitely want to do bigger patches that are less sporadic and continue doing news posts like this. I'll probably do incremental smaller patches anyway but I'll try my best lump bigger changes together and keep everyone posted.

I think the best thing to focus on for the next large update would be to flesh out all the new stuff in The Collection. I have my girlfriend working on tons of new drink sprites, a lovely new bar and drink selection design, and awesome new sound effects for everything. A revamp of the map is being worked on as this is being written, and I have two models nearly ready for the new fighters.

As well as this beast being tested for implementation as well.

I for sure need to work on custom animations as the base s&box citizen ones aren't cutting it anymore. They were awesome for prototyping and I literally wouldn't have made the game without it, but once authored and tailored for the game, it will be a major upgrade and unlock a lot more freedom.

There's also a full sound overhaul coming as well. There's really so many plans for this game that I think you all will enjoy.

And again, this is the first game I've ever released and I'm grateful to everyone who played and enjoyed it. I certainly don't plan on stopping anytime soon. 

I'll see you all soon for the next patch, have a good week in the meantime!