DAY 47
Not much done today in the project itself. Spent more time planning out the Dam area, including what mechanics to place there. One concern is that, with the height of the dam being increased, this leaves more space to cover when "escalating" the dam. I say "escalating" because it is clearly evident that simply having wall climbing and ledge climbing is both not enough and too much at the same time. It's simple, really: more variety is needed so that the section will feel dynamic instead of a slog.
So I found something in my Unreal Marketplace library and wanted to give it a shot. Namely some retractable floor spikes:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1czjPM37WlahmSk_376HRMCd8L8AItOE_/view?usp=shari...
This is something I wanted to make for the latter levels of the game. But as I saw that it was in my library, I'd figure I'd give it a shot to see how it feels. And it's quite OK. In series, with offset time, they look like this:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p-JH26N3iXFcOcFyKCdkHAgQdzvv6Xcf/view?usp=shari...
Now "Baftis, you dashing and dapper designer!", I might hear you say, "You've mentioned before that you are concerned with things being thematically appropriate, and this mechanic is not thematically appropriate". Well... no, you don't find retractable spikes growing naturally in the wild, so that means they must've been placed there by someone...maybe the villain?...Hmmmmm ;)
Anyway, making this mechanic is something very easy to do.
1) You have two separate meshes, one for the ground plate and one for the spikes. Yes, all the spikes have to be as one mesh, we're not sadistic here.
2) After the models are done, place these models in a blueprint with the ground plate at 0,0,0 and then the spikes at 0,0,0 as well.
3) Then, move the spikes down so that they are covered by the ground plate.
4) Take the Z value from the spikes as they are now and then use a float variable for the Z (where you want the spikes to go) on the set relative location node. Toy around with the height at what the spikes would be at the surface, I forgot to mention that earlier. Put these two values as the start and end location of the spikes.
5) Add a Damage Volume to the Spikes (place it so that the bottom of the volume matches the bottom of the spikes)
And you are basically done. It would take more to write the tutorial for this than it would take me to actually make the thing. But I was lazy af and procrastinating with this mechanic and I figured "Eh, why not?", so I just downloaded. Oh, and I say "basically done" because you do have to account the animation for the spikes, too. But it's a functionally sound death trap you've got there. Quite easy. But don't take this as a step-by-step tutorial, because it is definitely not. Take it as a "high-level" overview, if you will.
I would actually tinker in the blueprint to see what's under the hood. I'd like to add different (or separate) times for the delay of the "spikes up" and "spikes down" animations.
I also did some asset replacing today. This was solely because the player character had trouble with all the old blocky rock assets.
Recall this section of the first level and observe the very angled edges these rocks have. These edges threw the player way off when jumping on them. Of course they did, they're almost a 45 degree angle. So I replaced them with the rocks from the level I was just working on previously. And now the area looks like this:
But there was a wee tiny problem. You see, those particular assets were like 100 times smaller and with their pivot way off in the distance.
So I had to do manual replacement, instead of selecting the asset and replacing the mesh in a drop-down menu. But I can't complain, it took maybe 3 minutes and it was actually very relaxing and satisfying to do.
I've gathered all my energy to attempt and finally fix the rope swing and....nothing. Still wouldn't properly work. There's something that just doesn't work properly when letting go of the rope. I still have one ace up my sleeve. If that doesn't work I'll have to scrap this version and start over....ugggghhhhh !!
Although I got it to work at one point and after all this amount of work, it dawned on me that this mechanic kills player momentum. Or at least has the potential to do so, depending on where you place it in the level and after what mechanics you place it after.
If my last ace up my sleeve still doesn't work, I'll just duplicate the Grappling Hook mechanic and make it so that the player can shoot a rope that he can swing from. Might use it as an alternate fire kinda thing. If for example the Grappling Hook is triggered by pressing Left Mouse Button, the Rope is triggered by pressing the Right Mouse Button. This on paper sounds more fun than simply finding a rope in the world. Pressing Space would detach the player from the rope.
So that's all I've got for today. See you guys in the next post, bye.