Progress Report: Hitstops, Screen shakes, Flashing Shaders , particles and vfx textures

This month i focused on implementing combat effects to add some juice to game combat system

That includes effects like:

1.Hitstop: Both the attacker and the target pause for a few milliseconds when dealing or receiving damage. This makes each strike feel more impactful.

2.Screen Shake: As shown in the preview, I currently set it to trigger when the enemy deals damage to you, but it can be applied anywhere in the game. It’s great for conveying a sense of weight to characters, strikes, and skills.

3.Flashing Shaders on Impact: This effect activates when a hurtbox collides with its target. The target glows in a customizable color for each hurtbox, making the response to a successful strike more noticeable.

4.Particles: In the preview, you can see particle effects triggered when a spell hits a target or a wall. These enhance the magical feel of each projectile.

5.VFX Textures: These are used to make hits more visually appealing.

All of these features work together to bring life to every strike and swing in the game. They can be easily applied to any enemy or object as needed and are designed to support future game content.

Whats next?

Now i'll start the work on the sound component for the game, the idea is the same as above, a component that can be used anywhere and i can trigger whenever i want:

There will be 2 components:

1.A component for game ost and envirioment sounds (Room noise)

2.And the other one for every other sound effect in the game

i'll use some placeholder sounds untill i manage to comission some sounds for the game

Also i got some Good News:

I'll start my vacation from my job at the start of october, i'll have more time to develop the game for a momment and i'll use this opportunity to work on the feature everyone wants to see: game nsfw scene system and its first animation

It will be a multi stage animation, my plan is to do it like this:

A grab attempt from the enemy

1.A QTE pose, if you pass it you can escape the enemy grab, but if it fails it will start the scene 1

2.A foreplay animation, my plan is to make it loop and also be able to finish, and some afterglow state

Grab move second phase, same as above, but with a different animation

The player can break free at any time. However, as the journey progresses and the player is hit by unusual effects or grabbed multiple times in succession, breaking free becomes more challenging. These NSFW states can also negatively affect the player's stats, sometimes requiring specific forms of relief to resolve the issue. In the distant future, players might use consumables to mitigate these effects

I’ve made a small change to the plans for the Capra Demon’s offensive dash move. I’ll merge it with her grab move to create a gap-closing ability, allowing her to close the distance without adding an extra move to her skill set.

Enemy Sight , Aggro and hitbox and hurtbox, and camera devlog of this week:

Enemy Sight

Enemy Sight Detector:

Enemies have a green vision cone (check it out in the images!) that detects the player when they enter its range. But it’s not just about stepping into the cone there’s a wall detector raycast that checks for obstacles like walls. If there’s a wall between you and the enemy, they won’t spot you, making stealth a real possibility!

Enemy Attack Area: Once the player gets too close and enters the attack area (with no obstacles in the way), the enemy locks on and tries to attack. This makes positioning in combat super important.

Chase Alert Area: When an enemy’s aggro is triggered, their field of view expands, and they’ll keep chasing you as long as you’re in this larger area. If you stay in range, the aggro renews, so you’ll need to break line-of-sight or escape to shake them off!

Wall Detector Raycast: This raycast is active whenever the player enters the sight or attack areas, ensuring enemies only react if they have a clear line to you. It’s a small detail, but it makes the AI feel smarter and more realistic.

Raycast for cliff and wall detection for chase / partrol states: There's also 2 raycast responsible to detect walls and cliffs for the chase state and patrol states, if the enemy detects a cliff or a wall it wont chase the player through it and if its patrolling it will turn around and patrol again to the other direction

Hitbox and Hurtbox Mechanics:

Enemies and players now have hurtboxes (for attacks) and hitboxes (for receiving damage) that are fully functional. When an attack connects, the system checks for collisions, and a raycast ensures there’s no obstacle (like a wall) between the attacker and target. This prevents attacks from magically hitting through walls!, hurboxes activates in certan frames of any animation that i want to.

Camera

Also i updated the camera logic again, i've been playing some silksong and then i realized my camera vertical offset logic wasnt ideal, but now instead of janky bars that follows the players it will ofset based on the direction the sprite is facing

What’s Next?

The detection is working great, but I’m now focusing on adding damage states for characters (health bars, damage animations) and implementing mechanics like knockback, and other parameters to make combat feel dynamic.I’m tweaking these systems to balance challenge and making the game as fun as i can