Development Log #3

Welcome to Devlog 3!

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Week 4

Hello Everyone! Welcome to this week’s Devlog. For this week we had a few minor step backs for making our minigames but have made a great amount of progress! The theme that I got for this week was "Exploring Dark Areas".

THEME – Exploring Dark Areas

IDEA

To first start off this week my partner Michael and I decided to upgrade our input system to Unity's new one. Let me just say its not as easy as we'd hoped! However, we did it! The new input system is more complicated than the old one but has far superior advantages. When using this input system it allows us to use a system of "Mapping". Mapping is a way to take current key bindings and associate them to specific events within our project. An example of this is when you transition from one game to another. The controls may be completely different and each can be mapped to specific events/actions. Enough about the complex stuff, now back to my idea!

When I am in the dark the first thing I look for is some light. When that is not available I then get my phone and use the flashlight built in. The same concept applies to this idea. The character starts off with a weapon of some sorts. It can fire a SINGLE ball of light that lights up the surroundings. You only get one shot but, you may retract the ball back. This gives the player an understanding of using the ball as a guide. While this mechanic is being used you must use a force for movement while in Zero-G. The main objective is to actually escape a broken down ship that is being absorbed by the light itself while submerged in complete darkness.

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PROGRESS

To begin with the idea, I had to get the lighting system in place. This was going to be the main part of the game as it helps you find your way out. I began to put some models together to create a basic weapon that has the ability to shoot a ball of light.

After making the model I added it to unity and attached it to the player. Looking around in first person I had the weapon attached to me along with a cursor to where the ball of light would shoot. Because the ball had a rigid body to make it move I just added a force to it and with the power of physics.. BOOM! We get a moving ball!

BALL OF LIGHT

The hardest part about the ball's mechanics was being able to retract it back to the player. After spending some time messing with the movements, with the help of my partner we decided to use a lerp from the current position of the ball to the player. There is a bug where the player can hold the "Shoot" button and "Retract" button at the same time and it would replicate a flashlight which was not intended! This was fixed by using a timer after the ball is launched!

MAP

The next part was creating the ship that the player would have to traverse through in order to escape. I used a pipe that had an opening throughout that center to mimic a long tunnel. Afterwards I added some obstacles throughout the pipe that the player would have to move around in order to not waste any time escaping the light chasing them. Using the same material as the ship, when lighting was casted throughout the entire scene it would shadow the everything making it seem as if the player was in complete darkness. This is still a work in progress for the polishing stage but for now seemed to work as intended. At the bottom of the ship I made a wall of light that would start to move after the player finishes up the mini tutorial on how the mechanics work for the game. If the light reached the player they would be absorbed and it was game over and time to move on to the next level. The light uses an emissive color but later will make some changes to see if I can indicate to the player that it is something to avoid.

TUTORIAL

When creating the level there was no indication on what and how the player escaped. Because of this I decided to make a mini tutorial that shows the player how to retract the ball of light back to them and how it is used as a guide before retraction. Once the player decides to retract the light it will then began to show the player the light chasing them and from there the player must decide on how to escape.

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PROBLEMS

The biggest issues for this week was not knowing how to use the lighting to make the player appear in complete darkness. This is still an issue that I am going to work on later but managed to figure out a way to make the game still playable for how it was intended. The other thing was the movement. Because the player is in a Zero-G atmosphere it was difficult mapping the keys/buttons for the movements of the player. Because I am the one developing the mini game, I know every control that is available to me and it is easier for me to understand unlike others who haven't even played it before. Knowing this it is harder to show what the keys/buttons do and this is something that I would like to dive deeper into when we can get people to test out the game.

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ENDING

Anyways, that is all I have for this week as it was a smaller mini game to develop. There will be much more later and with some testing, many errors and controls will seem fitting for the player. I hope to see you guys next time! All photos from this Devlog post will be updated in the gallery so be sure to check it out and have a good day!