Dev Log 6#

It's been a couple weeks since the last update, here's what I can remember:

1. Special Block Types
2. Speed running
3. Major Bug Fixes
4. AI Improvements 
5. Demo + Extras
6. Short break until after New Years

1. Special Block Types

New addition to the game are special parts of the environment, specifically blocks of it.
There are now parts of the environment that are destructible, some of which can only be destroyed by certain abilities or weapons. It's possible for these blocks to halt your progression until you either find a way around them or through them.

• Fake blocks
• Missile Blocks
• Speed Blocks
• Bomb Blocks

2. Speed running

The player as a new ability added to the game; Speed running.
With this ability the player's speed dramatically increases to the point of being able to break certain walls and destroy some enemies on contact.

3. Major Bug Fixes

There were a lot of hidden bugs that me and Frece caught by play testing, one of the most game breaking ones were that the player was able to completely cancel somersaulting by aiming down while in the air, allowing him to space jump straight up, along with the player bouncing off of slopes and some AI bugs which are in the next section.

Fixed Bugs:

1. Space jumping straight up by holding the down button
2. Player bouncing on slopes when fast enough
3. AI bug fixes

4. AI Improvements

I have made a bunch of improvements to the AI in the game that has been implemented so far, mostly and most noticeably the Ranuk AI. I have completely changed the way that the Ranuk detects the player so that it no longer uses 2D physics boxes which the player could interact with when speed running making him destroy the Ranuk without actually "touching him", so detection now uses Ray casting.

Another improvement is to avoid fatal trapping of the player between the Ranuk and a way, I noticed that despite the Ranuk and player being "non-solid" to each other, he can still trap the player because of damage feedback, so I made it so that if the Ranuk is every facing a wall and the player is effectively between the wall and the player, he will jump away from the wall before coming in for another attack.

5. Demo + Extras

We started work on player animations and demo tile sets a few days before Christmas, so we haven't done much as of yet. Once we finish the player animations and some of the tile sets we can start taking screen shots and posting them to the dev log and facebook page for everyone to view at their leisure.

Aside from the demo, I took five days to review our game's player animation system and did some in-depth research into other games animation system of their places and thought a lot about it, so when we finish all our player animations and put them together in the game you can rest assured that they will be flawlessly tied together.


Having said that we started all this a few days before Christmas, we are taking a short break from development during the Holidays to relax so we can come back to making the game with a fresh mind and added ferocity.



I wish everyone a Merry Christmas or whichever holiday you celebrate, and a very Happy New Years!