Setbacks

After stepping out of our last feedback session, we realized that we did not have nearly enough content ready to begin the production phase – something that hit us a little hard. However, there is no time to drag our feet and feel sorry for ourselves. Therefore, we immediately decided to make some major changes and steer our project in a different direction, one that will hopefully lead us to better results.

Technical Updates

One first issue we had was the engine itself, Unreal. Despite its prowess and the vast amount of  possibilities it offers, we found ourselves stagnating because of how inefficient it was to program on it. Therefore, we have decided to scrap it and change to Unity, even though we lack experience with it.

We have gotten far quicker and efficient results because of it, though. In a shorter timespan, we have managed to include full character movement [left, right, changing depth], a dashing mechanic, and even a double jump, as well as a sliding mechanic to complete the set.
With this, we hope to allow the gameplay itself to be more fun while adding a few restrictions to the movement, which will be easier on the eyes.

We’ve also managed to include item pick up, a crucial aspect of our game. After all, we are still determined to allow players to sabotage each other. We have decided to scrap the ‘godlike’ player as well, to avoid any further confusion for now. It may later be implemented if we have time to spare.

In order to set the difficulty in stone, the two possible ways to die are from the traps themselves, and if the player lags too far behind, and goes off-screen. So far, we’ve managed to implement the glue trap, the ice trap and the spike trap, some of our more basic mechanics.

Graphical Updates

Now, here comes some crucial changes in terms of appearance and pure gameplay itself. Instead of opting for a top down, orthographic-style camera, we have decided to simply it and change to a 2.5D style view. This would allow us to focus on the proper placement of obstacles and swift, smooth-running gameplay. It’ll also allow us to work with 3 layers of depth.

We will still have varying themes for levels, of course, and hope to implement dynamic, immersive gameplay that will leave the players wanting more. As further inspiration, we have picked a game called ‘Robot Unicorn Attack’. It showcases the kind of speed and obstacle-jumping we hope to portray in our own game, with our own unique twists and tweaks, of course.

Apart from this, we’ve also been focusing more closely on level design. We’ve collected a variety of ideas for traps, obstacles, and level decorations we can place inside the levels, whose locations will be anywhere from a set of shelves to the bottom of a casino floor. We will focus on three levels, each with their own concept.

Ready for action

Although we’re a little disappointed that we had to be held back for an extra week, it did prove to be essential for the overall concept of our game. With this final prototyping phase, we hope to have a build that is ready to be elaborated upon and that we can be proud of.

We will continue to work hard.