Exercise
Polish Pass on Lexicon Duel
Module 6 · Exercise 1 · ~2 hours · capstone polish
No new systems this exercise — just application. You're going to apply the juice checklist to your current prototype. When you're done, the game should feel different even though the mechanics are identical.
The checklist
Work through these in order. Each should take 10-15 minutes. If one takes an hour, skip it and come back — don't let perfect be the enemy of shipped polish.
- Card hover lift — on mouse_entered, tween position.y -20 over 0.12s.
- Card tap pulse — on tap, scale 1.1 → 1.0 over 0.15s with TRANS_ELASTIC.
- Card selection tint — selected cards get modulate = Color(1.3, 1.3, 0.8). Already done, verify.
- Word preview — as the player taps cards, show the current word + score in a big Label above the hand. Updates live.
- Word submission animation — when submit fires, tween each played card toward the enemy's position over 0.3s, then queue_free.
- Enemy hit reaction — Combatant.damaged triggers: flash_damage() + Shake.shake(damage_amount * 1.5) + spawn impact particles at enemy's position.
- Damage popup — floating Label that rises and fades. Already have the code from Module 5 exercise.
- SFX — tap, select, submit, hit (different for player and enemy), invalid-word buzz.
- Music — one battle loop at 50% volume. Fade in on duel start.
- Turn banner — slide-in Label "YOUR TURN" / "ENEMY TURN" on each transition. Dismisses after 0.8s.
- Victory/defeat — fade screen, big center Label, confetti particle burst on win, grayscale filter on loss.
- Button hover/press states — make sure End Turn and Submit buttons visibly respond to presses. StyleBoxes in your theme.
The playtest
After the pass, play five full duels. Record a short video if you can. Watch it back. Find the three flattest moments — those are where your next polish pass goes.
Playtest discipline
Play silently first. Then with sound. You'll notice which actions lack audio feedback because they'll feel "empty" compared to the sounded ones. Then mute and replay — the visual polish gaps will jump out the same way.
Pre-Module-7 readiness check
Before you move to Module 7 (mobile export), confirm:
- The game can be played start-to-finish on desktop
- Victory and defeat both work and reset the scene
- No errors in the output log during a full duel
- Running the project.godot file from scratch works (delete
.godot/ folder and reopen — it should import cleanly)
If those all pass, you have something you can ship — it just needs to be on a phone.