Welcome to the DevBlog of our next video game ALICE AND THE GOLDEN COINS . Enjoy reading! Next, the game automatically saves the player's progress (icon in the top left corner). Finally, the level selection screen returns from the right side of the screen and bounces the camera horizontally when it reaches the left. This maintains a dynamic flow between level selection and gameplay sessions! Next, if Alice completes the level for the first time with at least 1 star, then the unlocking of the next level will be displayed. Next comes the display of the best result, in number of stars, achieved on the current level. As a reminder: 1 star for completing the money objective, 1 star for completing the bonus money objective (mystery coins) and 1 star for completing the secrets objective. To finish the game, you will need to complete all levels with at least 1 star. Next, the level results are displayed: money collected, bonus money collected, and the number of secrets completed. Each successful result appears in yellow and earns 1 star. Alice can earn a maximum of 3 stars per level. Here Alice failed the level (test) and she is not very satisfied 😒 Let's go! Alice always arrives by falling from the top of the screen. Then the fairy Candice appears and the game begins. Alice must then collect all the coins. When Candice has finished shooting all her coins, she disappears in a spiral motion. If Alice succeeds, she wins the level. If she fails, she must replay the level. Here, Alice has completed the level (test) and jumps for joy! Before the start of each level, Candice can give Alice advice to help her (tutorials, tips, secrets, traps, etc). The player can disable Candice's advice in the game options. When the player validates the level, the menu disappears and Alice runs to the right of the screen to go to the place in the forest where her game will take place. When Alice exits the screen, there is a loading time, mainly for the textures and music of the selected level, then the entire screen moves to the right, revealing the level. We're back! It's been a while since our last post! Before we begin, we've pushed back the game's development completion date to Q3 2026: we'll be doing a bit more polishing than originally planned (animations, presentations, etc). Regarding the graphics: the game runs internally at 270p (480 x 270). All graphical elements maintain this resolution and are displayed with the same pixel size. The only exception is the display of fonts and controller icons, which have a resolution twice that of the game itself. Without going into technical details, this solution provides better definition and readability. Currently, level selection and progression are fully functional. Everything will be detailed in upcoming posts. We'll start with the level selection menu, which is certainly the most important part of the game. For the sake of simplicity, all the information has been concentrated on the same screen:

• Top left: Campaign game mode.
• Right side of the screen: All the information for the selected level.
• Left side of the screen: All possible actions.
• Bottom of the screen: Campaign statistics.

To improve the readability of all this information, the campaign statistics (at the bottom of the screen) are displayed with a slight delay, in tabs. The icons for possible actions (on the left side of the screen) are compatible with keyboards and controllers. Here we find Alice in a quiet corner of the forest, in a calm and relaxing atmosphere, with a light refreshing breeze. The player can take the time to view all the stats and choose the level. Outside gameplay, Alice will always wear her full outfit. The White Rabbit, who will be on Alice's left side, will be added soon. The background scenery will be added later. We paused game development for 3 weeks as we worked on a big update and creating a demo for LASERPITIUM (Steam version). Nevertheless, the in-game editor for managing Candice's behavior is complete! This editor allows you to specify for each step:

• Candice's movement speed.
• Her horizontal position to reach.
• Her first wait time.
• Whether she should drop a coin.
• Her second wait time.
• The type of coin (mystery coin, 10-coin, etc.).
• The coin's fall speed.
• Whether the coin should bounce.
• The coin's movement speed during the bounce.
• The bounce amplitude.
• For each coin with a bounce, the destination position is also specified.

Now it's time to work on the menu that allows you to select a level (with additional graphics). Lots of new features, as you can see in this video:

• The basic gameplay of a level is functional: Alice and Candice appear, Candice throws coins and Alice can collect them, then Alice stops and Candice disappears when the level is completed.
• Candice's behavior is fully automated.
• The coin behavior is complete, with management of bounces, the value of each coin, etc.
• Integration of the first scenery graphics, with animations for the vegetation.
• Vertical camera movement when a coin hits the ground (can be disabled in the options).

Next, it will be necessary to create another editor integrated into the game to manage all of Candice's movements for each level. This wasn't originally planned, but it will be a necessary tool for level creation. As you can see in the first video, there are two new animations when Candice moves left or right! In the second video, Candice has a new idle animation: it will be used at the beginning of the level before starting the game and at the end of the level when she has dropped all her coins. A lot of time was also spent improving the game engine to make it even more powerful and easier to use, and to improve the editors, especially the level editor. With all these changes, we can say that the TR-Engine has gone from version 2.0 to version 2.5! Now it's time to add some additional graphics... Alice can now collect the coins in her basket! This is a first for THE REETEAM: 3D modeling software was used to create 2D Sprites. Here, Blockbench was used to create the 3D coins, then the rotation animation was created, and then each animation step was pasted into a Sprite sheet to obtain the rotation animation when a coin hits the ground. The result is very satisfying and will certainly be reused for our next games! Candice can now throw coins. In this video, the coins have basic behavior and lose their value when they hit the ground. Candice's animation when she creates a coin with her magic wand is done! Alice now has her basket! It moves slightly when Alice runs or falls back after a static jump. Candice joins the adventure too! We see her here with her idle animation. Advanced collisions: Alice can now have collisions with shapes, like here with slopes. Basic collisions and added gravity: Alice can now fall off platforms. Alice has two types of jumps. The first is a static jump. The second is a moving jump: you control your movement in the air by holding down the direction. After each jump, there's a landing animation when Alice lands on the ground. But don't worry, if you move or jump again, this landing animation is canceled. This keeps Alice's controls light! Regarding movement: the player must press the left or right keys, but the game allows you to press diagonals (e.g., pressing a down/left diagonal still moves Alice left). After spending 3 weeks improving the game engine, we started working on the overall flow of the game (menus, options, in-game achievements, etc.), the intro music and the first animations. In this video you can see the first 2 animations of Alice: idle and running (without the basket). The running starts with a slight acceleration, while the cape gradually rises. The next video will show the different jumps of Alice 😎 On the left side of this image you can see the work on the colorimetry of Alice and the scenery (the in-game rendering will be very close to this). The right side is not important, as these are just color tests. Work on sprite creation for Alice's first animations: static position and running. The basket is a sprite independent of Alice's sprite. The character sketches: Alice, Candice, The White Rabbit and Tilba. After having put all the ideas in place, after having evaluated all the necessary work, after having brought together the entire team that had already worked on LASERPITIUM, the start of the project can begin! If everything goes as planned, ALICE AND THE GOLDEN COINS will be finished by this summer 😎🌞