Magical Vine

Up until now we just had it so that when you jumped out of a level you phased into the next one. We needed something more obvious so we added a vine to climb up into the next level. After being told that this still wasn't obvious enough we added a glow animation around it. Then we added a glow sound that would activate when you got close and louder the closer you got to it.

Death Animations!

We really wanted something that would make our game stand out and keep people playing. By adding different death animations for each enemy in the game we bring in some originality while at the same time also adding a semi-reward for dying. Here are a few we have already.

Double Jump Animation

As I mentioned I can put in the last post I have coded in a double jump animation. There is a gust of wind coming from his leaves so it gives an actual reason to boost upwards.

Take off and landing animations

We thought it would be cool if the were animations for taking off and landing during the jumping cycle. After attempting to code this in for the better part of a day I am calling myself defeated on this. I almost had the landing working but it looked really odd so wasn't worth pursuing. While the take off just straight did not work. I did find that I could code in a double jump animation from this so all was not lost.

A fair few changes...

So since last time we have made a big leap. There is now new backgrounds for the first few levels as you start in a crater. The mushrooms spore now impacts and splatters on tiles as well as you can see below.

As you can also see in the above image there is a large rune etched rock. This will be at the start of each level and is the resurrection stone. It has a vine hanging down from it as climbing up vines is the way to progress in levels. And below is the resurrection animation.

New Sliding Animation

Jordan has just created a new animation of our character sliding. I have coded this into the running behaviour so that when you change direction while running you will slide, temporarily blocking the controls for running.

Ideas we had in class

So we have the idea of plants and tiles moving as you run past them and we have also moved to a theme of these runes on all the characters, enemies and plants. Anything corrupted by the smog will have its runes glowing green, whereas the glow of the seed is blue representing the mystic power of the ancient tree. From this we want to add the touch of as you pass corrupted plants their runes go from glowing green to glowing blue as you technically heal them. This will build on our subtle animations and will hopefully look quite impressive.

Audio tracks that we need to source

The following are the sounds that we expect to hear in game and that we need to source.

Jump

Double Jump

Walking (Rustling Sounds)

Death Sounds – Thorns, smog, spore projectile

Mushroom spore shooting

Landing

Ambient Track

Subtle sound for movement activated animation

Latest Version of Game

Below are the links to the current version of the game
Play
Download

Hanging now works!

The solution turned out to be really simple and just came to me randomly. I just put an invisible tile at each end of the vines that slants your movement downwards. Then I coded in that when hanging and you move down you automatically let go. Problem solved!

Double jump complete and Hanging almost...

Got the double jump working in about 10mins so I'm happy I've got something working. This seemed to get my flow going and the hanging code problem is almost solved. The problem with the freezing was it was trying to load 2 animations at the same time. So now that's solved I just need to solve the problem of the seed floating in space next to the "vines".

Hanging code more trouble than first thought...

So I have the seed disable gravity when he hits a ledge he can hang onto however I have run into a number of problems with it. First off when the release button is pressed he falls ridiculously slowly. The second is he doesn't when he moves to far left or right of what he should be holding onto, he just floats in space. And then when I had fixed all that the game would freeze when trying to load the hanging animation. I think I'll just code the double jump and come back to this as that should be easy.

Coding the different move functions.

So to start with the basic run, jump and fall code is done as it is the same as the game I made from project 1. The first thing I will tackle is the hanging stance. I need the seed to hold on to overhanging vines when he jumps up into them and then release when a certain button is pressed later on. After this I will move on to the double jump.

Group Meeting 1

Group meeting 1: 

Discussing game goal, environment, movement, enemies. 

We discussed on several new and different ideas to help improve the base of our game idea by changing different game characteristics.

Game Goal:

- Changing the original linear game into a game that has 6 zones and has 5 levels per zone each with ways different ways to interact with objects in game

-changing the character to collect resources by completing the jump puzzle and getting to the ideal planting spot. 

- the layer of polluted smog will be placed only on certain levels where the level design will be a horizontal layout rather than horizontal + vertical as it would have been far too difficult.

Enemies:

additional enemies that can be added to game.

- Polluted air bubble

-snails and slugs

-birds

-venus fly trap

-thorns

-quick sand

Environment:

-We have decided to change how each level will be, as the game is now going to be in zones, we though each zone should have an independent theme when say zone 1 is underground and zone 2 is in the morning and frosted over. 

- current consumables that we have come up with for the seed to collect and oxygen/carbon dioxid bbles, water droplets and sunlight. These are resources required for the seed to continue to the next level before planting itself. 

- on certain levels the seed will need some power ups to advance through the level, some of these are oxygen bubble shield that will deflect 1 hit from a monster, arms that can be lashed out like vines to swing over pits.

Movement:

Movement is a huge part of a game and really depicts how a user thinks of a game, if the character is hard to control then it can be very frustrating, especially in a game similar to ours. We have come up with a variation of movements for the seed to do to enhance the interaction of user to character.

Group Meeting 2

Discussing game mechanics, aesthetics, individual roles.

Game Mechanics: 

- Player Lives:

deciding on whether or not to have player lives. As some levels may be very difficult to complete and require many tries before succeeding. But still have not decided on whether if you die ‘x’ amount of times you will have to restart the zone, rather than the whole game. Or rather you have an unlimited amount of lives and you just restart the level when you die.

-Point system:

seems irrelevant for a game like this and will most likely not be included. instead of this we will just use a count for how many resources the seed has collected.

- End level

Still a tricky thing to decide, overall the character will be a full size tree at the end of each zone, rather than the end of the game, so it seems as if the seed has reached its maximum potential and has successfully saved that particular zone. But whether or not to choose if the seed plants itself and progressively becomes a larger tree at the completion of each level, or just to continue each level until it will plant itself at the end of the zone.

Current Individual roles :

- Jordan Shand - Character, art design

- Zac Bird - game mechanics, coding

- Chris Hughes - animation, level design

Game Mechanics

Final Character in Setting

Here is my character complete on his fast disappearing tropical island. Haven't been able to get the water to show up yet (for some reason it just won't).

https://sites.google.com/site/zacsflashanimations/Rising%20Tides.swf?attredirects=0

A4 Stills

Idle Animation

And here is the Idle animation. I wanted him to seem edgy and anxious to keep moving as the water level is constantly rising therefore his Idle pose is quite bouncy.

https://sites.google.com/site/zacsflashanimations/Idle.swf?attredirects=0

Falling animation

..... and falling

Right
https://sites.google.com/site/zacsflashanimations/CharRightFalling.swf?attredirects=0

Left
https://sites.google.com/site/zacsflashanimations/CharLeftFalling.swf?attredirects=0