In this update, I focused on making the humanoid enemies (like the Mummies and Mayan Guards) appear more intelligent. So now humanoid enemies will hear nearby sounds and start searching for you. The Mayan Guards which appear in the 2nd world will definitely be more challenging. If they spot you, they will also chase you and jump across platforms. But obviously they don’t have your dexterity. Even if they see another guard chasing you, they will accompany him. The Mayan Guards now can throw their spear at you if they see you running away from them. They can also pick it up if they find it in their path. Of course you can also pick up the spear and use it against them.

Besides chasing enemies I also had some fun making the explosions look better. Explosions are fun to do and now there are 8 layers which you can see if you slow down the video.
– white flash of 1 frame
– star flash which rotates and scales down slightly
– objects shooting off from the center spewing out dust clouds
– objects shooting off from the center spewing out pixel particles that bounce around the level
– bright hot gas particles at the center of explosion
– sparks with trails
– sparks with intermittent trail
– cloud particles going up after the explosion
On their own they don’t look particularly fancy, but when you combine them, the explosion effect looks pretty cool now.

Download Pyramid Plunge demo from Steam, Gamejolt, itch.io

Release Notes

Added

  • Mayan guards now throw the spear at you when you try running away. They can pick it up again if they encounter a spear.
  • You can pick up and throw the spear. You can get a spear by killing a Mayan guard or let him throw it at you.
  • Mayan guard can now punch you if he has already thrown the spear.
  • Also added Egypt mummy sprites for startled, searching, and search futile.
  • Added more sounds for mayan guard (huh when hears a sound, attack sound, hurt sound, die sound)
  • Notify nearby enemies of a sound, so if they are aggressive they go into a search state. Felicie will do less noise when landing, since she’s not as heavy as Giorgio.

Fixed

  • Fix for explosive fuse sound continuing when it gets under water
  • Fix for scarab not flapping wings when attacks while was paused
  • Fixed inconsistency in some Mayan guard sprites where he did not have hand bands.
  • Fix for trying to put back boomerang in inventory when under water, it would actually be dropped
  • Fix for “auto use health pickup” option not persisting between sessions (typo in playerprefs)
  • Fix for pressing action key when near a chest while not playing coop, player would get stuck in walking animation (Player can only open chest in Coop mode).
  • Fix for when friend dies underwater just before entering the exit, should not allow entering

Modified

  • Boomerang and Spears now break after several hits against the wall
  • Improved enemy AIs, especially Mayan guards which will try to follow you by jumping across platforms (but they cannot jump as further as you, or do wall climbs).
  • Visual improvement for explosions.
  • Do not do collisions between throwables when one of them is idle, or when horizontal speed is so low, to avoid getting stuck on each other in mid air.
  • If an intelligent enemy (mummy or guard) sees another enemy attacking a player (which might not be directly visible by this enemy), he will also be alarmed and start running towards the same player being chased
  • Enemies should hear you whistle and will look around to see if they spot you
  • Mayan guards now suffocate under water