Development Log #2

Welcome to Devlog 2!

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Week 3

Hello Everyone! Welcome to this week’s Devlog. We finally made it the first LEVEL JAM!! Woot Woot! In each week we randomly pick a theme that was given to us from our gaming professors. We take all the themes and then randomly select a number for how many themes are available. We then start brainstorming ideas for the theme corresponding to the number that was selected. So, for this week we got the theme Endless!

THEME – Endless

IDEA

At the beginning of the week we decided to start with some ideas that fit the theme exactly. So, our first idea was to make an ability last for an ENDLESS amount of time. We took this to an idea of like the floor is lava and you as the player would select an ability to reach the end goal such as a platform that was raised in the air. We thought of two abilities such as, a jetpack that would thrust constantly, but the player would have to control it, and to keep the player jumping all the time as they navigated on platforms to the final one. Although this idea fit the theme, we realized it had no WOW factor. We kept thinking of more ideas and eventually settled on the idea of having an endless amount of lives. This was then expanded to after the player died it would spawn a clone that repeated every action the player did in that life. We then started our development journey for this week!

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PROGRESS

To begin with the idea, we needed to get a working clone system in place. To make clones we made a class that would keep track of the max number of clones the player could have at one time. It would also keep a lot more information about the players positions at specific time intervals and anything involving a clone. This was the main point of this Level Jam and we decided to create different types of platforming levels to make use of the players clones.

CLONE MANAGER

To store all information for our clones upon spawning we use a “Clone Manager”. The idea was to have a time interval which would store a position of the player in a list. Once the player died the clone manager would take the list of positions and create a clone to pass the data onto. This would allow the clone to follow each position as if it were showing what the player did in the life before. After it would create a clone it would increase the current clone amount and check if we had the maximum amount already spawned. We had to limit the number because the size of the positions became very large due to the time interval being small. If the time was too large, we got very inconsistent looking motions of the clone because we were using a lerp.

CLONES

As mentioned above the clones would get the data from the clone manager and use it to follow a path of positions. Every time the player stepped out of the checkpoint bounding area the clones would spring to life following the positions. The clones also received the same time interval as the clone manager did so that way it would know where to go at what time. To spice up some of the levels within the Level Jam we allowed the clones to have a hit box. This was to allow the player to use the clones in various ways.

LEVELS

We decided to make five different levels along with a tutorial in the Level Jam itself. These levels would allow the player to use clones in a different way form the last. The five levels consisted of, a tutorial area, generic platformer, portals of remembrance, minesweeper, imposter, and a lens of sight. These levels will be explained a little further.

Tutorial - The beginning area shows the player how to exactly use the clones and what to expect within the next levels.

Platformer – The platformer has the

player use the clones as steps, guides and to interact with pressure plates and more.

Portals – This level uses the idea of the clones to show the player what portal was entered last to not make the same mistake.

Minesweeper – This is a puzzle level to use the clones as reference and guidance.

Imposter – Tests the players ability to understand his/her movements and identify the imposter clone.

Lens of Sight – Uses the clones to see platforms that only the clones themselves can stand on.

ENDING

As you can see the clones will be used in various ways and during the whole process of making these levels, we decided to add new functionality to the clones. We allowed the player to put the clones in a "STASIS" mode. This would freeze the clones at its last position of where the player died. This made it easier to not have the player waiting around for specific time limits as that would make the game longer and less enjoyable.

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That is all we have for this week as I don’t want to spoil the entirety of this week’s Level Jam. There is much more to see in the final version after polishing but I hope you stick with the Devlog series and I shall see you guys next time! All photos from each Devlog post will be updated in the gallery so be sure to check it out and enjoy the rest of my page!