The team has been very hard at work since halves presentations.
On the programming side, prototypes 5 and 6 are finished and the programmers are now working on polishing the existing material and adding in more content as planned. Prototype 5 consisted of more blended slashes being implemented, and Adam wrote a Unity Editor script to let him mirror animations to speed up the implementation process. More slashes are being added to the hero character to give the player variety in the way they attack, and the blending and math work continues. For prototype 6, Anthony implemented several environmental and special effects as well as all of the UI layer and the big payoff moment in the game, the Sync Kill. The Sync Kill is a quick time event (QTE) sequence in which the camera switches to a cinematic mode and the player basically interacts with a cutscene when prompted to trigger the next part of the cutscene. When completed correctly, the end result is a very fluid set of three kills that the player feels like they performed.
The artists have been diligently working on adding more animations, developing the UI elements, and working on effects for the world. Patrick has been busy creating particle effects for things such as wall smashes and hits on the enemy, and he has also been tuning the enemy animations and adding more variation to their behavior. Pei has been designing and painting all of the UI elements, including the Sync Kill gesture guides, the health and charge meters, and the combo counter.
Below are some examples of effects and things that have been implemented since halves!
A Sync Kill being executed and chopping the enemy's arm off.
UI overlay with sync meter, charge meter, and Sync Kill gesture guide
Particle effects when an enemy is flung into a wall.