Dev Blog 4 - Implementing New Features

Today I implemented "on-rails" platforms that move in x & y directions (besides falling, which was already done) and rotating platforms.

After implementing these I stopped and thought for a bit about how I wanted the player to interact with these platforms. 

On one hand I can have the player character automatically move with the moving platform like in many platformer games. This removes any challenge associated with a moving platform, which is usually compensated for by adding challenge elsewhere. For example, in some platformers when you jump on a moving platform and your character moves with it automatically, you will have to time when you jump off of the platform perfectly to avoid death or enemies or some obstacle. If no challenge is added elsewhere, and the platform movement is done for the player, there's really no challenge presented and you might as well have a static platform.

On the other hand, I could force the players to keep moving with the platform in order to avoid falling of and dying. This adds some challenge, but not a lot - it's fairly easy to keep holding the movement key and continue moving with the platform.

I ended up going with the 2nd option - players have to keep moving if they want to stay on the platform. However, I added a slight additional challenge and have plans to combine it with parts of option 1. The slight additional challenge is that the player moves faster than the platforms, so they can't just blindly hold the movement key down and steamroll past the platform's challenge. And my plans for further down the line in more challenging levels is to combine moving platforms with enemies, moving obstacles, and gaps to add more unique challenges to the moving platform.

Dev Blog 3 - Reworking gravity, new features

Today I rewrote how gravity works in Enigmatic - the way gravity was written didn't work well with the implementation of one of the new features (dissolving platforms). When a platform dissolved, if the player was still above it and not moving, they would just float above nothing, and could continue the level without dying if the next platform was close enough. Obviously this isn't intended, so I changed gravity around, and made it slightly stronger, so that if the player decides to stick around while a platform dissolves beneath their feet, they're sure to die.

Next up, I'll be implementing platforms that move in x & y directions (besides falling, which is already done) and rotating platforms.

Side note: "Alive" 2007 by Daft Punk is my new favorite album to listen to while writing C# scripts =)

Dev Blog 2 - Setting up music & art production

I spent a considerable amount of time today communicating with Efe, one of our background music composers, Ronny, our sound FX maestro, and Cheyenne, our talented artist. It's good to setup up this production pipeline early (much earlier than we did with Chromacore) and clearly communicate Enigmatic's needs to everyone contributing.

I'm spending the rest of the day implementing new features and fixing up the riddle script. I quickly discovered that the way we programmed the prototype last semester wasn't the brightest way of doing it.

The way riddles and levels alternate, and the way we have the right riddle paired with the right level hinges entirely on if the scene index is odd or even. Every riddle scene's index is even, every level's index odd. This worked just fine for the prototype's purposes, but for a real fully fleshed out game, we're adding a menu system and level selection, which needs to be added at the earliest scene indices. Adding the menus and level select throws off the indices of the riddles and levels, which breaks the riddle script.

I'm now in the process of rewriting it so it no longer depends on the absolute scene index, but rather a scene index assigned to the riddle or level manually via an empty gameobject in the scene.

Edit: Finished up rewriting the riddle script, it no longer depends on the absolute scene index, but rather a modified scene index assigned to each scene individually.

Edit 2 @ 8:30PM: Implemented falling obstacles, dissolving platforms, and working on having moving enemies now. Might decide against including moving enemies, since the levels themselves are quite short and small, there might not be much room for them to move!

Dev Blog 1 - Engimatic Alpha Development

Here's a sneakpeak screenshot of alpha development for our 2nd title "Engimatic", a 2D riddle/trivia platformer!!

Back to work!

After a short stint abroad (and a quick visit to a Serbian hospital, no worries, nothing serious) I'm back in the US and starting development of our next 2D game "Enigmatic" - already prototyped and designed!