Development Log

Development process:

We began the development with the idea of being able to use four elemental power:, air, water, fire, and earth, to pass the obstacle. Next, we thought of ways to implement these powers integrating tools and concepts we learned in our game engineering course (such as instantiating, raycasting, using colliders and triggers). As we were thinking about the powers, we came up with certain obstacles that the player had to interact with, such as enemies, ice walls, metal grids, earth platforms. We ended up implementing ice walls and earth platforms.

We started developing abilities with the fire power. The first idea that came to mind was shooting projectiles to melt ice walls. Some other concepts were damaging enemies, and interacting with water to create steam clouds to fly/glide. As for earth, we were inspired by Avatar Aang and implemented direct interaction with the level setup for the player - moving certain platforms. We also considered interacting with earth to create damaging lava puddles. For air, we wanted to provide mobility. We were thinking about flying or gliding, but ended up implementing a simpler version - air jumping. For water we were considering seeping through platforms, gaining stealth, or moving faster. However, we faced communication and collaboration issues that barred us from implementing many concepts, such as enemies or the water powers.

We wanted to give controller support and use as many mechanics as we had access to, so there is functionality for keyboard direction and space bar, as well as clicking forward or back to help you advance through the level. We initially wanted each power to have a distinct hotkey, but conceived some ambitious plans for many more powers and combining elements, so it seemed to make more sense to use one button to cycle through powers and another to trigger the ability.

At first we thought of this game as an fast-paced adventure platformer, where you run forward and through your powers left and right, but after some playtesting we decided that due to the pace and the feel of the movement in the game, it would more sense to lean towards a puzzle-game approach.  To achieve this, we limited the power gain of the player by implementing charges for the elemental abilities, and shrines to replenish those charges.

Shrines:

Elements:

Backgrounds:

Player States:

Sounds credit:

https://mixkit.co/free-sound-effects

https://elements.envato.com/sound-effects

Summary of play tests:

Playtest Results Week 1:

• Levels too easy, so make them more complex(hard)
• Add more mechanics based on the element
• No animations
• Add better sounds

Playtest Results Week 2:

• Add background theme based on the element
• Need better background music
• Add exit screen
• Add more obstacles
• Add power count dashboard

Playtest Results Week 3:

• Add ending and winning scene
• Make levels that have all powers
• Add ability to combine powers and use them at once

Link to presentation:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Hzf7PreLcoL_1knYcAlaWG3NvxGWwLKf-7HFjsG6...