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Devlogs

Devlog 2 - Basic Level Blocking

Escape from the Mansion
A browser game made in HTML5

Basic Level Blocking Devlog

Hi, this is the second devlog for “Escape from the Count’s Mansion”, about basic level blocking in the game. For this second checkpoint, I’ve gone with designing the basic level layout for the first “floor” of the mansion, or first level of the actual game.

 

The level layout was designed using a tilemap set “Mythical Dungeon” from itch.io, created VerzatileDev, which has a designs similar to an old fantasy dungeon. I decided to change the approach to the story of the game slightly, instead of the main character being stranded in a mansion, he instead tries to venture down further into the mansion, and finds himself lost in the mysterious dungeon, and he must survive while finding the keys to return.

 

The Mythical Dungeon tileset includes several types of walls inspired by old dungeon as well as Runescape. I chose the darkish coloured walls because that would fit the theme I am going for on the game, which is pictured below:

Walls shown with the floor

I used TilemapCollider2D with CompositeCollider2D on the walls so the player interaction with the walls was as accurate as possible. I did run into a couple of issues with colliders but managed to get it working in the end. The reason it wasn’t working was due to the WorldBounds object that I used to get my Cinemachine camera to confine it and make it follow the player, and it wasn’t set as a trigger, so the player kept phasing through walls or being pushed out of the actual collider. The failure is pictured below in a GIF:

I also used part of the tilemap to design a sort of base with five squares of water in the middle to give it a mysterious type of vibe, as well as adding a challenge in the future when the player is being chased by enemies in the dark. The water tiles could potentially be animated in the future to add a bit more flair. The water tiles are pictured below:

Water tiles

The barrels on the corners from the map are where I plan to have the enemies spawn from sporadically, then they chase around the player. The plan is to have the first level have rats as the enemies. The enemies then get an upgrade as the levels go on. The barrels are pictured below:

Barrels

As part of the improvements from last devlog, I have the player sprite animated thanks to the animated sprite of the character Steven from Kronovi on itch.io, with proper animation for walking as well as other movement that may or may not be used in my game. I used Piskel to duplicate and flip the spritesheet to also have separate animations for the other direction facing as well.  However the build has a couple of issues now, so the player isn’t animated properly in the build uploaded to itch.io. Current issues with the player animator are that the player doesn’t flip direction properly with the “A” or “D” keys and instead only flips if the “W” key is pressed alongside the other keys. Possible foresights on the problem are the player movement code I am using now not having the right code to switch animation states. The other issue is the animation being stuttery and not as smooth as I would like it to be. The animated player sprite is pictured below in a GIF, as well as the glitchy movement animation (as well as I could present it in this devlog):

Current feedback received from some friends and testers include praise for the colliders, the overall vibe of the tilemap and the level design, as well as the flashlight, which seems to be getting most of the love. The improvements suggested include potentially spreading the water tiles out to include other objects such as a charging station object for the flashlight’s temporary charge. These improvements are planned for the next devlog update and the next checkpoint, as well the next main checkpoint being the addition of  enemies to the game.

 

References:

Mythical Dungeon Tileset by Versatile Dev, 2023:

https://verzatiledev.itch.io/mythic-dungeon

 

Character: Steven animated character spritesheet by Kronovi, 2021:

https://darkpixel-kronovi.itch.io/character-steven-free

 

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