Food Fight 404 – Alpha Devlog (May 2025)

Hey crust-slingers! The Food Fight 404 alpha is live on itch.io, and I’m pumped to share what’s been cooking behind the scenes. Between ADHD-powered all-nighters and last-minute rewrites, we’ve completely overhauled the core loop to deliver that frantic, wave-shooter chaos you deserve. Here’s what’s fresh out of the oven since our last update:

🎯 Core Gameplay Overhaul

• Rewritten Game Flow The week before alpha, I realized the original loop wasn’t delivering the relentless push of a true wave shooter. So I scrapped it and rebuilt from scratch. Now you’ll experience:

  1. Sliding Barriers that move toward you at the same speed as the floor scroll—no hidden camera tricks.
  2. Frequency-Based Waves that interleave obstacles, enemies, and bosses at pseudo-random intervals.
  3. Dynamic Pacing, where enemy spawn frequency ramps up with each completed level, forcing you to stay on your toes.

• Wave Pattern System Gone is “spawn N enemies, wait X seconds.” Instead, each wave’s enemy count and spawn rate are generated on the fly—more enemies mean shorter intervals between spawns. Combine that with random spawn points, and you get a sense that baddies can appear from anywhere, anytime.

🤖 Enemy & Variant Framework

• One Base + Data-Driven Variants All enemies share a single Enemy prefab. Each variant uses an EnemyData SO that, when loaded by our VariantLoader, automatically:

  1. Instantiates the correct visual model (cucumber sniper, cabbage bruiser, carrot spearman, etc.)
  2. Applies material overrides (tints, textures)
  3. Configures stats: Health, Speed, RotationSpeed, and attack parameters
  4. Wires up Shooter components so each variant behaves appropriately (ranged or melee)

• Behavioral AI

  • Enemies idle-move until the barrier clears.
  • Upon barrier clear (via a static OnBarrierCleared event), they switch to “attack” mode: rotate toward the player, move at their AttackSpeed, and fire or swing when in range.
  • No per-enemy colliders for line-of-sight. Instead, each enemy simply waits for the barrier event, then checks distance to the player each frame—if close enough, they begin their assault.

💥 Power-Ups & Companion Logic

• Permanent Weapon Upgrades Our WeaponUpgradePowerUpData now grants a permanent buff (until you die). When you pick one up:

  1. Your player’s Shooter swaps to a new ProjectileMovement prefab with an updated FireCooldown.
  2. All active companions immediately inherit the same weapon, so your “slice buddies” fire just as fast and just as deadly.

• Companion Manager Enhancements

  • Spawns N companions in a circle around the player (e.g., three “slice drones” that orbit at a fixed radius).
  • Duplicates the player’s health for each companion’s own Health component, giving every slice buddy equal durability.
  • Fires an OnAllCompanionsDead event when every companion is down—only then does the player’s “turn” (or wave) truly end. No leaving the battlefield until every buddy bites the dust (or you run out of crust).

🏗 Wave Spawner & Obstacle Chaos

• Dynamic Wave Generation (Grammar vs. Simplicity) We experimented with a full token-grammar (“O3 E10 B0” patterns), but for rapid alpha iteration we shifted to a simpler frequency generator. On each wave:

  1. We calculate the total number of enemies based on the current wave index (and player performance).
  2. We spawn obstacles (rolling pins, spiked dough aerators, kegs, pizza boxes) at a frequency inversely proportional to enemy volume—more enemies = fewer obstacles per second, keeping the field tense.
  3. We spawn each enemy prefab at a fixed enemyInterval, then drop a boss when all waves for that level are complete.

• Obstacle Mix-Ins Each wave now yields a random set of obstacle prefabs chosen via SpawnEntry weights. This ensures just enough chaos—imagine cabbage snipers lurking behind crates or cucumber grenades ricocheting off rolling dough—before the full horde descends.

✨ What’s Next?

1. UI Polish

   • Revamp the end-of-wave panel (scoreboards, “Share Your Victory” button, wave countdown).
   • Improve the HUD: show wave number, health (crumb count), ammo (pizza slices), and active power-ups.

2. Resource Economy

   • Implement virtual currency (“Cheese Coins” and “Spice Shards”) that drop from certain enemies.
   • Build a between-wave upgrade menu where you spend your cheese on “spicy ammo,” “extra slice health,” or “faster movement.”

3. Boss Waves & Balance

   • Fine-tune boss tokens (B0, B1, etc.) so every 5th wave unleashes a unique miniboss (Mac & Cheese Titan, Spicy Pepper Overlord, etc.).
   • Adjust the EnemyWaveGenerator so higher waves adapt to player skill (e.g., reduce spawn counts if you’re dodging flawlessly).

4. Alpha 2 Launch

   • We’re collecting feedback and fixing the top bugs from Alpha 1 (thank you to everyone who’s tested so far!).
   • Look for our Alpha 2 build in Discord’s #alpha-playtest channel later this week—stay tuned!

🎮 Play the Alpha Now on itch.io

Dive into the chaos, test your crust-flinging mettle, and let us know what you think! Grab the build here:

https://your-itch-page.com/food-fight-404

– Tarl, solo dev of Food Fight 404 🍕🔥