This week I made several changes to my design. Some of them are, yes, compromises for the express purposes of getting this prototype finished in time.
Change 1 :
The original intent was to have an oxygen hose attached to the player when they are tethered. That is still the ideal way I want the tether to work. However after much discussion with one of my lecturers I have been informed that, while it is doable, it will take a long time to get it working and regarding my assignment it won't get me many marks. My time for now would be better suited in other areas.
I do intend on going back to the oxygen hose. I believe it compliments my themes nicely and is immediately intuitive. In the event that I need to clean up my game and make it more presentable before I get a chance to implement the hose then I will use a bubble shield!
When you are in the shield you have unlimited oxygen. Break the shield's seal to move forward and reactivate it by pressing a button on the lander itself.
This works well with the code I have already. Currently I have the boundaries set up so that when you activate the tether (at the lander) you can only move so far from the lander without deactivating it (from anywhere).
I know what I need to do to get a hose coming from the lander. Which is either by making the hose out of links (like a chain) and spawning new links as the player moves away from the source, and delete them as the player moves back. That's the ideal way but alternatively I could pre-make the hose with all the links I need and then hide it from view, maybe in a box in the ground under the lander. I could make some invisible collision boxes to help feed the hose up to the player's height. I'd just need an anchor point on the end of the chain and on the player so that they attach when the tether button is pressed.
Change 2 :
The boundary of the tether is simply just two invisible colliders that spawn when you tether yourself (for the purpose of testing the boundary is green and visible (The White block is the Lander and the Pink block is the Player)).
Change 3 :
I have made a bunch of progress on the Functional Design Document for the game. There is no need to disclose all the juicy (probably mundane for the average reader) details here but I will mention the addition of Secondary Characters. Part of my brief include an automated AI character. I intend to split up some of that functionality into an asteroid strike and these Secondary Characters. Previously Tic (the player character) was to be the only living thing on the planet but now I have introduced Other Astronauts.
Other Astronauts can be found at some man made facilities which mark the end and beginning of most levels. They are non intractable and serve only to highlight Tic’s drive to push on, opposing ideas of acceptance and expressing questionable heroism.
As the game goes on fewer and few astronauts can be found, magnifying Tic’s inevitable isolation.
In the final product, no astronaut will appear in the very first level (basic tutorial level). This should spark the player’s questioning of Tic. Who is that? Why don’t I talk to them? What are they doing? What am I doing?
We shall 'shlaters',
Richard.
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