TrickFoolery Proof of Concept!

While last week covered some initial brainstorming, this week’s dev log will mainly cover the technical side of things. Our CS team has been hard at work bringing you a proof of concept for presentation!

Goals Entering this Week

Our primary objective for the week: a less janky rendition of our game jam! We took these early days to set up some of the fundamental mechanics needed to get our core gameplay loop going. Coming off of the game jam, these were the tasks we decided were needed for a more complete proof of concept:

1. **AI Pathing: ** During the gam jam, we started work on a basic pathing script that would have enemies wander around the map when not in sight of the player. While we didn’t quite have the time to push that work into our game jam presentation, we were hoping this week we could tidy that up. Furthermore, the aggro pathing in our game jam was rather crude, not updating with player position. This week’s priority was giving enemies that “chase” behavior critical to our gameplay loop.

2. AI Attacking: While our one-day prototype technically had a charging enemy, anyone present at the jam could confirm that it was somewhat barebones… This week we prioritized refining a clear “charging” enemy that will likely become one of our (planned) 3 enemy types.

3. AI Collision: A core aspect of Trickfoolery’s planned gameplay loop is the hilarity and satisfaction that comes with watching enemies clash into each other while trying to pursue you. We wanted our proof of concept to capture that “gotcha” moment that serves as the principal payoff for all the player’s effort.

4. Improve Player Movement: Our game jam prototype contained some of the most hated controls to mankind…the dreaded tank controls. As movement is the way our player will engage enemies in Trickfoolery, spending a lot of time getting these movements precise was a big priority this week.

With these goals in mind, we present to you a quick demonstration of “ProofOfConceptFoolery”:

The Good:

• As you can see, the player now moves with much more fluidity, now possessing a useful dash that gives players the opportunity to time their dodges with slightly more precision (and I would argue grace!). Even at this basic level of implementation, that satisfying rush you get when you pull off a near miss is on full display.
• Instead of attacking you right away, enemies take some time to charge up before pouncing at you without warning. Even this slight addition of unpredictability keeps you on your toes, while also giving you time to setup your own self-constructed dogpile. Already we are starting to get that proactive reactive dynamic mentioned in our game pitch.
• Perhaps the most entertaining part our game, we now have functioning collisions for our enemies. When they run into each other, the resulting ragdoll is both hilarious and satisfying. I felt like I was crafting a twisted Rube Goldberg machine, where one enemy would ragdoll across the screen like a bowling ball on its way to the pins. Very excited to develop this feeling more!

Improvements:

• While the non-aggro patrol movement for the AI was working, during our last merging it seemed to break again. For now, when enemies are not in sight of the player, they just sort of just spin in a circle… This will 100% be fixed for the next log!
• The astute viewer will note that we technically have a second enemy type. The standard “attack” enemy intended to compliment the charging foe. For now they don’t spend a whole lot of time actually chasing the player, though they do attack if you get close!
• For now, the player doesn’t have health or a death condition. While it would have been ideal to get this working of the proof of concept, this will likely be added as soon as tomorrow.

What’s Next:

Despite some of the limitations, bugs, and things to improve, the core gameplay loop is fun! The dodging, rag-dolling, and “trolling” feeling we want our game to possess is already coming into view with mere capsules and squares! This upcoming week you will hear a lot more from our art and music team as we finalize our game design document. We are extremely excited to share our vision for this game, and even more excited to bring that vision to life!