Well hello there!
We cannot believe it is done... 11 weeks of planning, prototyping, developing, and polishing are done, and man, what a result we have to show for it. It was a journey. One that seemed intimidating at first but (thankfully) eventually grew into a fun project made with determined and humorous people. It wasn't always sunshine and rainbows, much blood, sweat, and tears were shed in the making of this project, but we all learned a lot from it. We came all out of this project as better developers and artists, which in the end, was always the main goal (besides making a fun game of course)

We're happy to introduce you to the final Demo version of Binary Bandits which you can now download via the main Itch.io page. Instructions on how the play and how to install can be found there too. We hope you try it out and that you'll enjoy it.

And if you are interested to help us out, we did submit this game to this year's Rookies. You can find our submission here.

But, before you go and do all that, let us talk a bit more about the last bits and pieces of polish we managed to include in this final week.

The Finished Look

People with a keen eye might've noticed a slight alteration in our render style. Besides our toon shader and the line shader for enemies and interactables, we now also have a faint black outline for all other objects to give them that extra pazazz. Also, has our glass material gotten a complete overhaul to a more shiny and exciting version of its former self! 

Menus

Our menus, especially the game-over menu, are going to be seen quite often by the average player. So, why not make them at least a bit more fun to look at? Humouristic and animated images of our poor spy being caught by the collar of his shady jacket should do just that. And once you did manage to get to the end, our spy will be greeted by a sea of confetti that will make him jump with glee!

Effects and Player Feedback

The exploding paper fountain has now been properly implemented as well as the footsteps of our spy. Timer clocks can now also be found above interactables once the hacker has activated/deactivated them. The timers will show you just how long you've got until they turn back on and the item or guard will be ready to catch you in the act once again. Hacked doors will also have a quick unique effect applied to them to show them being activated. And last, but certainly not least: the robots have an idle animation. No A-posing any longer!

We also gave the end zone a much clearer and visually appealing effect so that there can be absolute no confusion as to what is your end goal!

Sound

The alarm now actually, well, sounds an alarm to make you hurry up! The guards also now have a sound cue that plays whenever they spot the spy. And when you win, a fun little melody plays to congratulate you. 

Programming

At last, the final stretch! There are no flashy updates from me here. What I did do is make sure that two hackable objects/guards cannot have the same ID tag above their noggin, so you cannot hack two things at once anymore (regardless of how rare the situation would be). I also made a part of the hotcode more efficient, so now the UI updates more smoothly (I know, it's not really visible at all, but in code it looks a lot cleaner, so...). And I helped adding the aforementioned alarmsound to trigger.

Lastly We also improved the stun gun mechanic! The range is wider, so it's way easier to hit a guard.  Previously, there was one line tracer to calculate the collision to guards and made it hard to hit, since you had to aim very precisely. Now you don't have to worry about your aiming skills to hit a guard.