Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot shows two new parts to one of the levels of the Vertical Slice Moon:
The week just past perhaps revolved primarily around the levels of the game in one way or another, with a bit more besides:
Monday, July 25. 2022
Landings and Levels
Summary: In which a weapon is worked on, but shelved; some in-system lighting is tweaked; one level is merged into another (and a third changed as a result); a level is further built; upgrades may be removed; and "landing sites" are implemented.
Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot shows two new parts to one of the levels of the Vertical Slice Moon:
The week just past perhaps revolved primarily around the levels of the game in one way or another, with a bit more besides:
Greetings and salutations!
This week's screenshot shows two new parts to one of the levels of the Vertical Slice Moon:
The week just past perhaps revolved primarily around the levels of the game in one way or another, with a bit more besides:
I mentioned in last week's blog-post, I believe, that I had been working on a new weapon. Some work continued on that in the week just past--but for the moment it has been shelved, with the thought to revisit it for the full game.
On the aesthetic side, in the week just past I tweaked the lighting of moons and asteroids within their solar systems.
While I had been happy with the lighting of moons, on asteroids I felt that it looked a little too much like they were dipped in white paint. Thus I made some changes--and indeed, I think that the new version is an improvement! ^_^
Moving on then to level-building, in the week just past I continued the building of the Vertical Slice Moon's "Hall of Secrets"--or rather, the level that was previously so named.
You see, the previously shown "Hall of Trade" has now been folded into the "Hall of Secrets", with the resultant level being named the "Hall of Lost Things". The elements of the "Hall of Trade" remain largely the same--the only real difference is that it's accessed via a corridor from the level-entrance, rather than via a set of stairs of its own.
(And concomitantly, I updated the "surface" level to now have one less exit, as there is one less level for it to connect to.)
And, as shown in the first screenshot above, in the week just past I worked on the section of the level that demonstrates two of the game's "metroidvania abilities".
Specifically, I worked primarily on the section of the level dedicated to demonstrating the "teleportation" ability: First via a field of spikes, oscillating too fast to move over without taking damage, and second via a mini-maze of caves, joined by passages too narrow to fly through.
Further, I have the scripting implemented by which the player gains the two abilities demonstrated in this area (via interacting with glowing orbs), as well as a means for the player to leave (again by interacting with a glowing orb)--the latter of which incurs the loss of those abilities.
And to that last end, I implemented the removal of upgrades--something that I had been considering for the full game anyway--including a minor effect to accompany each such removal.
Now, a question that I have considered a number of times over the course of development has been that of how the player enters moons.
Up until now, the player has on entry appeared in their target moon at an arbitrary position, determined by the direction from which they entered the moon. However, while this provides great freedom to the player, it also incurs some restrictions on level-design, as the "surface" level then has to be built in such a way that all positions on its circumference are viable positions at which to enter.
I had considered implementing specific "landing sites"--but had I think been dissatisfied with the lack of freedom that this incurred, as well as the open question of why the player, flying in from "space", was so limited to these sites.
But in the week just past I reconsidered the "landing site" approach, and decided to go for it. Indeed, not only does it remove a difficulty in the design of "surface" levels, but it arguably provides the player with one more thing to discover.
And of course, there were various fixes, tweaks, and changes enacted in the week just past that don't seem worth detailing here!
That, then, is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^
On the aesthetic side, in the week just past I tweaked the lighting of moons and asteroids within their solar systems.
While I had been happy with the lighting of moons, on asteroids I felt that it looked a little too much like they were dipped in white paint. Thus I made some changes--and indeed, I think that the new version is an improvement! ^_^
Moving on then to level-building, in the week just past I continued the building of the Vertical Slice Moon's "Hall of Secrets"--or rather, the level that was previously so named.
You see, the previously shown "Hall of Trade" has now been folded into the "Hall of Secrets", with the resultant level being named the "Hall of Lost Things". The elements of the "Hall of Trade" remain largely the same--the only real difference is that it's accessed via a corridor from the level-entrance, rather than via a set of stairs of its own.
(And concomitantly, I updated the "surface" level to now have one less exit, as there is one less level for it to connect to.)
And, as shown in the first screenshot above, in the week just past I worked on the section of the level that demonstrates two of the game's "metroidvania abilities".
Specifically, I worked primarily on the section of the level dedicated to demonstrating the "teleportation" ability: First via a field of spikes, oscillating too fast to move over without taking damage, and second via a mini-maze of caves, joined by passages too narrow to fly through.
Further, I have the scripting implemented by which the player gains the two abilities demonstrated in this area (via interacting with glowing orbs), as well as a means for the player to leave (again by interacting with a glowing orb)--the latter of which incurs the loss of those abilities.
And to that last end, I implemented the removal of upgrades--something that I had been considering for the full game anyway--including a minor effect to accompany each such removal.
Now, a question that I have considered a number of times over the course of development has been that of how the player enters moons.
Up until now, the player has on entry appeared in their target moon at an arbitrary position, determined by the direction from which they entered the moon. However, while this provides great freedom to the player, it also incurs some restrictions on level-design, as the "surface" level then has to be built in such a way that all positions on its circumference are viable positions at which to enter.
I had considered implementing specific "landing sites"--but had I think been dissatisfied with the lack of freedom that this incurred, as well as the open question of why the player, flying in from "space", was so limited to these sites.
But in the week just past I reconsidered the "landing site" approach, and decided to go for it. Indeed, not only does it remove a difficulty in the design of "surface" levels, but it arguably provides the player with one more thing to discover.
And of course, there were various fixes, tweaks, and changes enacted in the week just past that don't seem worth detailing here!
That, then, is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^
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