Dev Blog 3

This sprint I focused on getting the basic gameplay loop features such as the secondary abilities as well as the implementation of the basic frame system to make hacking more streamlined. I also worked on directing my team to finish the player models so that rigging could begin as soon as possible. Lastly, I utilized a great play testing opportunity to gather some data on our gameplay and make any changes necessary.

Dylan did some amazing work at consolidating all of the variables that needed to be transferred during a hack into one place to streamline the hacking code and make it less reliant on individual variables. 

Things such as health, move speed, weapon type, abilities, and dash amount are now all connected to the body frame they are attached to. This means that instead of having to correctly pass all of these singular values into the player character in the event of a successful hack, the code only needs to check for and pass the frame information. I think this change will be very useful for increasing performance and making the programmer’s life easier when working with the hacking system. He also worked on the dash mechanic which feels great to use and feels balanced across all 3 frames. It may need some work with how it recharges but that is a lower priority task for now. Hopefully in the future I can have the dash charges refill even if only one has been used instead of waiting for all 3 to be expended before they recharge. 

Further additions to completing the basic gameplay loop were made this sprint as well. Chase worked on giving the enemies basic AI with movement and aggro range. This is a great base to jump off from in order to make more advanced enemy AI. 

The heavy enemies will most likely use this basic AI structure since they have a lot of health and firepower but low mobility. They are designed to just be a big menacing roadblock for the player. The light and medium enemies will likely have more nuance to their behavior. The light will get in close but back off when they take too much damage. The medium will try to keep their distance at all times. 

For level design, Angel worked hard to make changes based on our play test after Beadle’s lecture on Thursday. 

Our playtest ran into a lot of technical issues as well as problems with player interaction with the levels. Firstly, we had to build the game multiple times due to features like the hacking being broken by small things like a trigger accidentally being marked to block raycasts, the debug menu not being disabled, and jump height values being reverted to the correct numbers after internal testing. After we sorted out those issues, I helped direct Angel’s changes to the tutorial level, starting with smaller rooms and corridors. One of the issues playtesters brought up was the massive amount of empty space that was present in the levels which made moving through them feel tedious. Secondly, there was the issue of unnecessary paths. There were some paths in the level that did not lead the player to the end of the level and just were dead ends that were used for testing features during previous builds. These extraneous paths were promptly taken out. 

Finally, I oversaw the completion of the light and medium frame character models. The light frame, made by Dylan W, has the nice sleek and agile look I was hoping for. While some simplifications were necessary, especially for the chest, Dylan absolutely killed it with the details on the arms and legs which really make them look like something straight out of Gundam.

The legs do have reverse joints as I originally wanted but in this picture they are stowed in a more conventional bipedal manner. Peter’s work on the medium body was great. The medium body had the least amount of concept art done for it and as such was a bit challenging for him to make. However, once I gave him the right amount of prodding into a certain direction he eventually got a grasp of the main vision for the medium frame.

 Its monoeye and camera-like head was my idea with its “ears” being his idea. I also wanted the legs to look more humanoid due to its bipedal gait but I also told him to make the sides of the legs flat to really give it a mechanical look. The arms (not shown) are asymmetrical with one side having an armored pauldron and the other being more lightly armored. I decided on this look in order to offset the large star launcher on the medium frame’s shoulder and reestablish a sense of balance in the body’s design.