I wanted everyone to have a chance to play the game and enjoy it, so instead of releasing the game like I initially wanted to at the Normal Mode. I split the game into three difficulties like so;
Easy Mode -> The hoop moves back and forth only.
Normal Mode -> The hoop also moves vertically.
Hard Mode -> The hoop also moves horizontally.
At the start of each game you have 10 basketballs to score hoops, look at these as lives. When a ball is thrown and missed you lose a life. If you score a hoop you keep all lives you currently have. This enables you to technically throw an unlimited amount of balls as long as you keep scoring hoops.
When scoring a hoop, you are rewarded with points depending on the distance from the player to the hoop. When scoring a hoop, a multiplier is applied to the next consecutively scored hoop and will continue to increase the more hoops that you score consecutively. When you miss a hoop, the multiplier is then reset.
So after ripping my hair out trying to get this implemented, I have finally gotten to grips with the Steam Inventory system. Every 3 hours of game time you will be eligible for a drop, this drop will be picked from a pool that contains different collections of basketballs. These basketballs have different rarities and wear ratings...
Divine (Rarest)
Celestial
Skyborne
Cloud-Touched
Pristine Bounce (Rarest)
Court Ready
Game-Tested
Street-Worn
Playground Survivor
You can favourite as many of the balls in your inventory that you wish to use, and the game will randomly select a ball from your favourites list every time a basketball is given to throw.
The game records all stats such as balls thrown, hoops scored, highest multiplier reached, highest hoop scored and your top score. These stats are separated by difficulty and can all be seen in the main menu. Leaderboards can also be seen in the same tab, but after much thought I decided that having a global leaderboard is useless so its a friends only leaderboard. I did this because people will cheat the game and I am only one person and will not be able to moderate the leaderboards at the level I would expect myself to. I really do hope people compete to achieve the highest scores they can possibly get and that certain websites take on the moderating of these leaderboards for top scores or other challenges the community can think of.
Really wont take my long, I think there may be 10 at most.
Not really a feature and more of an overall important ingredient of a game. I just didn't add sounds for the game whilst developing. I have tried to make music for years and its never really worked, so there wont be any music for Holy Hoop. So I just have UX, Environmental and SFX sound to create and implement.
There is currently no way for you to know when a new drop reward has been received. You can see this by checking the inventory in game or through the Steam Inventory, but I would like to let you know when you have earned a new drop automatically. I may not have this implemented on release since its not a game breaking feature, but Im sure you would like something like this included.