More 2020 Progress
Hey everyone! It's been a few months since our last update, and we've been busy! We've begun work on our 2nd level, and there's a bunch of work to be done that reveals itself as we continue to move forward. Below is a bunch of gifs of stuff we've been up to with a comment for each. Enjoy!
We've had breakable walls -- but now we have breakable floors too. Here's a snippet of how we plan to use it in the level.
We've known that Ela has a bit of a lead on the other two playable characters in the movement department, so we've settled on a new move for Red and Akardo. Red's is a Wall Rocket Jump, where he slams his mace into the wall and jets himself off of it for a massive burst of horizontal and vertical momentum
He can also crash through walls with his body while he's flying!
Akardo's new move is a dodge-in-place with a couple of options available to him during it. He can decide to attack, or move to the side to dash. Doing nothing will leave him dodging in place until the animation's finished, granting him a big chunk of invincibility frames. During the dash, he's also invincible, and it'll let him pass through special walls that the other characters can't pass through.
Slowly but surely we're adding more ways for NPCs to be outside of the play field to vary up encounters. Here's a fragment running into the play field from the background
We've added a system that gives the player an opportunity to view an item and its description the first time it's picked up.
We decided to experiment with the age-old mechanic of pass-through platforms, and it turns out they feel pretty good in our game. So now we have pass-through platforms.
New interactive type: drawbridge!
This next series of gifs features some areas of our in-progress level!
Experimenting with more basic AI that we're naming "critters"; here's a prototype bomb-bug who occasionally walks around and explodes
We've made a pass on our player character lighting, and it makes for some nice scenes in darker areas
Another new interactive type: DPS walls! These work on a DPS threshold, meaning that when enough damage is dealt to them over a short period of time, we can make particular events happen -- reveal an area, drop goodies, etc
Hit Switches are a way for us to play with Hit-Cancels in a platforming environment. In the gif below, a wall lowers when a switch is hit, but the time it's lowered for is heavily influenced by hit-cancelling. These will enable a lot of different level design opportunities since the system can interface with a lot of other interactives we've made so far
A ladder mechanic we're testing -- Trap Ladders! Having a ladder break while you're climbing it can lead to some suspenseful gameplay moments. (Not pictured: the ladder actually breaking into pieces)
While testing combat in certain whiteboxed areas in our game, we realized that it might be nice to have the option for NPCs to not get knocked off of cliffs when they're attacked. So we tried it, and this is what it looks like
Hazards are fun -- getting crushed by rocks is no exception
One of our NPCs, Yupas, has been modeled and textured!
Dialogue UI has been upgraded and implemented!
Game over? This is what happens
Killing a boss should feel rewarding. Here's a prototype of our boss death screen
One of our bosses, Voi, and his adopted son Adynos, have had a few concept pieces made by Mike!