The second week of prototyping has ended and during the past we have asked ourselves the following questions:

Q: Would it be more fun if we added a third floor to the game?

A: We spend quite some time expanding the levelgeneration algorithm and added a new floor. To accommodate this we made the cameraview a bit wider to show more of the level at once and decided it provides a more dynamic game. The final version of the game will most likely contain 3 floors. The images below shows the difference between the old 2 floor system and the new 3 floor system.

Q: Is an orthographic camera really the best fit for the game, and would a perspective camera break with the turning mechanic?

A: To test this we changed the camera settings to use perspective settings. After a few tweaks to camera position and field of view we got a nice result als illustrated below. However, we are not sure what is the best approach for our game. The nice thing we learned was that changing this is very little work, so we can decide this later when we have a better idea of the final product.

Q: Is there a way to make the player learn the controls without a boring tutorial?
A: With the suggested feature from our coaches, we gave the players some time at the start of the game to get used to the controls. In the first 5 seconds of the game the game doesn’t move and there are no hazards for players. Afterwards the game slowly begins to accelerate to its intended initial speed. During those 3 seconds of acceleration the players will know that the game has started and that they will have to catch up if they don't want their co-players take valuable power ups or worse risk dying. After these two stages, the players should be emerged into the game and ready to take on the hazards and fun the game has to offer.

Q: What other small nuisances can we fix to make the game play smoother?

A: The previous prototype could bug and send both players in an endless respawn loop, so we fixed this with different respawn locations. The player also could not jump when running against a wall, which has now been resolved. We also gave the two player characters different colors to make it easy to recognise your own character.

Q: Is it more fun to add some items to the game and how have you implemented it?
A: yes, cause there is more interaction between the players. They can now be invulnerable and fire a cube that is acting like an empty turtle , that can bounce back to the player itself
(ref: mario). We also used the pattern of “Observer” to make the interaction between classes & events more smoothly. Now it’s easier to implement another item.

Q: how will the game look?

A:

-lighting:

We tried some different light setups and came to the conclusion to use one directional light  as the sun. The directional light is rotated in the same direction as the camera. So the shadows are clearly visible. Also will we be filling up with a lot of extra lights which will not cast shadows. These lights will be taking away a lot of darkness, and lit up everything quite evenly. we'll also be experimenting with post processing effects such as bloom. 

-composition:

It was already clear which direction we were taking for the composition. A clear foreground , midground and background.the walkable parts are small in height but long in width. Then the midground which is directly behind the walkable area and then some environmental assets like mountains or later on castle walls or villages as the background. This gives the scene a kind of depth.

Q: What will the effects look like?

A: As for the special effects, we’ll use a combination of meshes and sprite sheets to make some sort of comical (cartoonish) effect. The game is supposed to be fun to look at, and we all know that how more cartoonish the effects look like, the more fun people will have to use them against their friends.

We’ll give a more detailed update about the RFX next week

Q: What will the HUD look like and how will it be implemented into Unity?

A: This week we made a concept for what we want the HUD look like. The use of wood is justified due to the medieval theme. There will probably be added a lot more, onto the cover photo, but for now this is what we’ve come up with as our design.

This will be our start screen, but the background will probably be replaced by the 3D assets (screenshotted with an orthographic camera). The same will happen with the characters, or when we have the time to make more detailed art for the characters, then these will replace the momentary placeholders.

There is also a layout concept for the ingame UI.

This is how we want our game to look as it’s layout (of course all ingame elements will become 3D but this is just for the proportions of the HUD in comparison with the game). Every player will have its own symbol of the character on the shields (placehold by the player indicator). Every player will also have an inventory of 2 pickups and an indication of how many lives they have left.

The timer is still conceptual because we don’t know if we want it into the game/hud as it might be too distracting with everything that’s going on ingame. But we’ll figure this out when we’re testing everything.

Q: How do you implement art in an engine (Unreal vs Unity)

A: Because we artists are more familiar with unreal the unity engine looked quite scary. But it is really the same principle. For the implementation of assets in the unity engine the only difficult thing was to handle the materials. Also the terrain creator was a struggle to master. But overall it did go pretty well. It’s just drag and dropping assets for the level creation.

Next week:

Adding visual to the existing prototype.

Starting the production fase.

Making concepts for the particle effects.

Writing smooth system.

Modelling more assets for the final version. 

Testing interaction between the player and breakable assets.