Wednesday 3.8 | Checkpoints
Platformer Prototype
Implementing a system for managing checkpoints, spawning to them and saving the progress to memory.
Day's Work
- Checkpoints
- Spawning
- Checkpoint reached tip
- Saving/Loading
- Effects missing still!
Tuesday 2.8 | Gold System & Pause Menu
Platformer Prototype
Working on the gold crates and UI.
Gold collecting
Gold is collected with particle system collisions and sucked into the player with a force field.
Pause menu
Basic pause menu with Unity's new input system.
Day's Work
- Gold system
- Collecting gold
- UI
- Sounds
- Saving/Loading
- Haptics
- Pause menu
- Resume
- Restart
- Reset & Restart
Monday 1.8 | Spicing up the Blockout
Platformer Prototype
The level is starting to look pretty decent, so I began spicing it up a little bit.
I wanted to add a really hard challenge that gives you nothing when/if you finally do succeed, so there's a useless radio tower in the middle of the section now (or the skeleton for it).
Giving enemies access to the roof with off-mesh links.
Day's Work
- Blocking out
- Testing animated platforms (Rotating radar)
- Ladder
- Climbable
- Off Mesh Link for enemies to access the roof
- Slides through the roof but it doesn't matter right now (Will be shown in future videos)
Sunday 31.7 | Blockout, Gold Crates & Triggers
Platformer Prototype
Splitting the day for blocking out and some necessary gameplay elements.
Updated blockout
Not in Unity yet, but maybe tomorrow.
Breakable crate full of gold
I will probably simplify/change this a lot to get a clean gold gathering mechanic and just move on. I made the destroyed crate with blenders Cell Fracture addon, which is great but I forgot to boolean out the overlapping parts so it goes flying the moment you touch it. Also I'm not sure how gold would fit in with the theme, but I don't need to worry about that right now.
Simple trigger for tips
Day's Work
- World
- Adding complexity and depth to the layout
- Adding a lot of platforms
- Features for playable blockout
- Breakable gold containers
- Triggers for on-screen tips
Saturday 30.7 | Hostile Area In Progress
Platformer Prototype
Throwing some gameplay elements and buildings in to see how they would work with eachother.
Hostile Area In Progress
I now consider dropping the final challenge with the rest of the sections, because I think one well made "hostile area" or section would show the potential of the game way better. In playtesting, it would mean less excuses to tell myself about not having enough time.
Day's Work
- Throwing some elements
- Enemies
- Alarms
- Objectives
- Adding hopefully enough buildings so that the player doesn't need to run anywhere
- Probably will be adding trees that have branches as "platforms"
- Thinking about how many objectives should there be, what they'd be and in what order if any
Friday 29.7 | Rearranging Sections & Rethinking Scale
Platformer Prototype
Blocking out more of the level, testing the blockout and rethinking scale.
Rearranging sections
I'm rethinking the order of sections and how they would play out. I started to create the first section where the player actually should be thinking and the scale is already getting out of hand. This section is supposed to be the 4th out of 7 and I'm really running out of time (trying to get this playtestable before 22.8 when uni starts back up), keeping in mind that I have to still do some gameplay programming (Gold gathering, save points, simple shop UI, hints, objective markers).
I'm thinking about making the 4th level more non-linear with ~2-3 objectives in the same space and making the 5th a final challenge where you can test out the skills you've learned (could be timed and scored or just a little more challenging puzzle).
Trying out the blockout in Unity
Some thougths after testing:
- Bug where you can parachute up an incline
- Sliding feels weird (starts sliding to a wrong direction or that's how it feels like)
- Jumping feels weightless (Maybe lack of landing effects or because of too much air control or because downwards velocity affects jumping too little)
- Can step too high
Day's Work
- Trying out the blockout in Unity
- Creating a TODO to get actual testable gameplay
- More blocking out
Thursday 28.7 | Continuing Level Design
Platformer Prototype
Blocking out the beginning of the level, seeing the possible scale of things.
Day's Work
- Building on the level design figure
- Blocking out the first 3 sections
Sunday 24.7 | Starting Level Design
Platformer Prototype
Starting out the level design progress by mapping level elements and working on a flow figure.
Level Elements
First I tried plotting down every game element I have on paper, so things like:
- Jumping
- Controlled jump
- Double jump
- Running
- Thin platform
- Moving platform
- Switch
- Exploring
- Alarm
- Controlled double jump
- Parachuting to climbing
- Jump, attack, jump
- etc...
Some of these make no sense and some overlap with others, but it helped a lot when I was figuring out the flow because I could see what I was missing and what I can combine for later challenges. Also it cleared my mind a lot because this is a mess even on paper.
Very in progress flow figure:
Day's Work
- Mapping out all the mechanics and level elements
- Figuring out the flow of the map
Saturday 23.7 | Combat Balancing
Platformer Prototype
Finishing up work on the main character animations, for now at least.
Combat Balancing & Minor Fixing
My spamming attack X/▢ did way too much damage so to balance this I created new attack types:
1. Basic: X/▢ "Primary"
2. Strong: Y/△ "Secondary" & Air X/▢
3. Stronger + Stun: Air Y/△
4. Critical Strike (damage 5x+)
I also changed the secondary attack to a thrust stab because the previous felt really clumsy. I might slow movement during this attack because it's pretty fast and high damage, but that's in the future.
Day's Work
- Combat
- 4 damage stages
- Basic
- Strong
- Strong + Stun
- Critical Strike (damage 5x+)
- Different secondary attack
- Health bar working
- 50hp marker (not scripted have to add the markers by hand because time)
- Awareness meter working when inspecting
- 4 damage stages
- Ledge Jump
- Fixed kinda
- Still ground check bug when landing but I have to move on
Friday 22.7 | Combat Animations & Ledge Jumping
Platformer Prototype
Trying to get the animations to a point where I can move onto the level design finally.
Combat Animations
Adding an air attack for the primary attack button (X/▢). Making attacking on ground look less like an activity on ice with an avatar mask. Now the ground attacks are way too powerful, so I'll have to come up with a solution for that one and finally move onto the level design.
Ledge Jumping
Adding a ledge jump because it looks pretty rough without it. It isn't in the video because I essentially broke everything in the process and now it looks worse. I might have to ditch the idea altogether, because I probably should be focusing on something else.
Day's Work
- Fixed attacking
- Doesn't slide around while attacking anymore, only looks goofy now, which is progress
- New air attack
- Fixed ledge jumping (couldn't get up before)
- Animations
- Ledge jump animation (ATM broken , landing and everything around it breaks)
- Separated air attacks to new layer to exclude them from avatar mask (which is used for ground attacks)