Another two weeks of work

Heya guys, Mars here presenting you with the latest update!

We've invested quite some time into the project over the past two weeks. Luckily, we're already ready to enjoy some of the fruits of our labor, as we already have a working version of the game. And even though it's far from finished, it's still a lot of fun to play.
Pretty much everything of the regular Bomberman is programmed, the AI and the various menus being the exceptions. 

Aron has managed to finish the InputHelper class, making it easier for us to assign buttons for each action per player. There isn't a menu for this yet, he and Jaimy are working on that. Another nice feature is the fact that we are able to use the controllers from the Xbox 360 and differentiate between them. This makes gaming with four players simultaneously a lot simpler than having four people hassling on a single keyboard. 

Ricardo should be able to start working on the AI now, as the player and bomb classes are finished. You'll find out in the next big update (perhaps even sooner!) how much progress he has made.

In terms of Game-design, we've added four different races to play as, each with their unique perks and special bombs. Ever wanted to be a Pirate battling Aliens? Or a Ninja eager to blow up some Zombies? Well, you can now, as those are the races you're able to play as.

The races aren't implemented yet, but we can give you a list of their special weapons. These weapons will appear as power-ups on the field and they differ per race. You'll only be able to have to one of these power-ups at a time, so if you collect one while you haven't fired your current on yet, it will go to waste.

Aliens will be having a neutron-bomb who's explosion is powerful enough to pass through walls. It's reach is limited, but it's a star shaped explosion, meaning it will go off everywhere in a three block radius. Please note that while the bomb is able to pass through the indestructible walls, it will not destroy them.

The Pirates' special weapon is the cannonball. It can't be placed like regular bombs. Instead, it will be launched in the direction the player faces. It will explode on impact, unless it collides with a player with the kick bomb power-up. 

Gas-bombs will be the ninja's special weapon. They won’t cause an explosion like the other bombs, but they will spread a lethal gas across the passable tiles. Bas will be working on this bomb. Seeing as he already made the path finding, he'll be able to use that to determine which tiles will be affected.

Last but not least there's the zombie-exclusive bomb, my personal favorite, the Zombomb! Once placed, the Zombomb will wander back and forward across a straight path. It will chase after anyone it sees, meaning everyone with either the same X or Y coordinate, without a wall between that player and the bomb. It explodes when it comes in contact in contact with another player, or when it's been walking around for too long. It isn't fast, and it's blast range is really small as well, to prevent it from being overpowered.

Also, every race will have their unique passive abilities as well, but to be honest, we aren't completely sure what those should be...

Moving on from the races, Jaimy and Bas have been working on the game's graphics, giving us the sprites for both the pirate and the alien race. The background sprites and those for the walls, both the destructible as the indestructible are also finished. As you're able to see in the screenshot below, there's currently no grass being drawn under the exploding wall.  

We've ran into other bugs as well while play-testing. one of them was that kicked bombs stopped my colliding with a player, would move again as soon as the player stepped out of the way. Luckily for us, the problem was easy to fix, and gave us a few good laughs as well. The lighting isn't done as well, you can see that the lights surrounding the player will pass through the edges of the field.

One other bug we've encountered was an ammo hiccup. If somebody picked up an extra bomb power-up, while they already have one or more bombs out in the field, the maximum number of bombs that player could place was increased again after their bombs exploded.

This is all for now, we hope to see you again in two weeks, but remember, if we have anything else worthy of posting here, we'll make sure to do that too!

Thanks for reading, and have a nice weekend!