Brand New Bells!

A brand new set of bells based from Lazarus' wonderful concept art are now complete and UDK ready for level 1!  Awesome sauce!

Ooh!  Shiny!

And as an added bonus, these bells come with exciting new puzzles designed to bring additional gameplay to level 1.  Instead of being an optional tool to extend the player's tether, these bells will be imperative in helping the player advance through the level.  Each bell will produce a different sound, and players must ring them in the correct order to proceed.

That.... doesn't describe much, does it?  But fear not!  Details are currently still being sorted out.  We're hoping the new puzzles will be finalized and implemented within the next sprint.

Finally, the Flying Golem is coming to life!

Thanks to Kersti's awesome concept art for the Flying Golem, our vision for it is coming into reality:

Pretty cool, right?

And I am working hard to accurately bring her concept into 3-D, and then into the world of Chime. Usually, I am a strict polygons-only sort of modeler, so you wouldn't believe how much trouble I had getting Maya curves to behave like this!

Slingshot mechanic working!

So I spent a lot of time this weekend experimenting with the Slingshot mechanic.  Interestingly enough, I realized purely by accident that you can "ricochet" yourself off of your surroundings, reaching areas you were not aiming directly at.  This video shows me playing through two puzzles that I hope take advantage of this feature.

I think its very promising!

Meetings and Consecutive Tethering Particle

So this weekend the Programming/Mechanics/Puzzle design team had a meeting to all get on the same page about what exactly it is that we are going to accomplish this quarter on the mechanics front. We are now all on the same page, and we have a much more solidified idea of the exact functionality we need from each mechanic.

We had a small group meeting earlier today. We discussed, among other things, some gameplay improvements that can be made to Level 1. These improvements deal with making Level 1 more about exploration, and revealing the narrative to the player as gameplay progresses.

We also decided on which bell concepts we wanted to use for what purposes.

Flying Golem Bell - calls the flying golems
Gravity Bell - suspends gravity
Wind Bell - calls bursts of wind
Level 1 Bell - used for environment exploration in level 1

And on a programming front, minor improvements have been made to the slingshot mechanic. Also, the particle effect for player feedback for consecutive tether switching has been implemented and looks pretty cool. This led to the discovery of a small bug concerning the consecutive tether switching, but it has been remedied. Huzzah!

Also, this happened.

Slingshot Mechanic Prototyped!

Whoo! So the second of our major mechanics has an initial prototype. It still needs a lot of work, but its getting there!

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
state Slinging
{
    local vector slingVelocity;
   
    function PlayerMove(float DeltaTime)
    {   
        // Move pawn to the current tether position.
        Pawn.Velocity = -30 * slingVelocity;
       
        UpdateRotation( DeltaTime );
    }
   
    event BeginState(Name PreviousStateName)
    {
        slingVelocity = HTPawn(Pawn).Location - HTPawn(Pawn).MovementBoundsPosition;
    }
}

I know, you are saying, really Kersti? It took you that long to write this snippet of code? Jeeze you suck. This is just the snippet of code that defines what is happening. Easy peasy. The real challenge was in making this snippet work with the rest of the code. All the rest of my coding effort for this problem was in a million little places everywhere else in the script that needed some new variable, some new function. Also, I had to rework the way the states worked a little bit, but they work better now!

Anyway. From here on out for the slingshot mechanic, most of what I will need to do will be expanding this little snippet into a larger snippet.  All the programming structure is in, now I just have to finesse it, make it more involved.

But before I do that, I am going to go back and fix up the Moveable Golem mechanic a bit. Also, going to implement a feedback particle for consecutive tether switching.

Prototyping Mechanics

For Sprint #2 I am constantly prototyping in engine the new Dragging mechanic and the Slingshot mechanic.  I will be working closely with Kersti to make these mechanics run as smoothly as possible.

This week I have set up the new Dragging mechanic and have been toying around with it.  There was a little trouble setting up the custom node initially, but Kersti has figured out the problem and I am looking forward to setting up a solid puzzle with them now!

Moveable Golem Kismet Node

Thought I had done this already, but it was brought to my attention that I hadn't. I made a kismet node that will change whether a moveable golem is moveable or not. This node can be activated when a bell rings to make specific golems moveable, and then activated again when a bell has finished its 'cooldown' to make the golems un-moveable again.

Movable Pillar Prototype

We now have a working prototype of the Movable Golem mechanic.


The MovablePillar golem class has a forceApplied event that is triggered as long as the pawn is outside the tether length, aka 'stretching.' This sets the direction that the Golem should move. The tick function moves the golem so long as the tether is stretching. Otherwise, it interps to a stop.

   
event forceApplied(Vector direction)
{
    directionVector = direction;
}

event Tick(float DeltaTime)
{
    local vector movementVector;
   
    // Inheritance
    super.Tick(DeltaTime);
   
    directionVector = VInterpTo(directionVector, vect(0,0,0), DeltaTime, 10);
   
    movementVector = directionVector * DeltaTime;
    movementVector.Z = 0.0;
   
    Move(movementVector);
}


Aside from anything that Level and Puzzle designers ask me to change, I have a couple future fixes that I would like to implement. A 'mass' value for the golems, to determine how heavy they are, and how resistant to the pull of the pawn they are, so they don't move at the same speed as the player. Also, I want to experiment with using SmoothMove rather than Move to get a sliding effect. I want to make sure that the golems can be stopped by other assets with collision to limit the distance and places that the movable golems can go.

A Particle and Programming Show, Feat. Porcupine Max

Brock Boutwell has been keeping up the great work in terms of particles, giving us even more particles to populate both Level 1 and the upcoming Level 2.

A small, fully animated candle flame!

A school of fish to be used wherever there are large pools of water.

Wind stream! Look out for these to be utilized much more often in Level 2. 

 In addition, Kersti Kodas, while taking a break from the Sprint Sheets, has been doing a lot of behind the scenes work, performing programming fixes and setting up things to make placement of certain assets easier for the level designers of Level 2.

And, at some point during the weekend, the crew got a hold of a lot of clothespins...

Tutorial Level Building

On the road to Entelechy, the tutorial level has been receiving a great deal of love lately. Monica Young, Casey [Danger] Bridgham, and Nicole Brunken have been working on modeling and texturing assets to populate the level, while Max Benjamin has been devoting some of his time to creating the opening cinematic for the level in Matinee. Brock Boutwell has also been busy with some very pretty particle work.

Monica Young's In-Progress textures for the walls and floors of the Tutorial Level's Environment

Nicole and Danger's work on the murals, being used to communicate the story at the beginning of the Tutorial.  

Max's cinematic work, combined with a few of Brock's sparkly particles. Also, a finished mural pictured in the background.

Contest Entry! And Level Design

In preparation for both Entelechy submissions [and another contest], both environment teams for Project Chime are now retooling their efforts to polish up Level 1 of the game.

This means that the Tutorial Level we'd planned to create within the quarter has been moved to top priority and we'll be making a push to have everything up and running very soon.

Meanwhile, our Systems guys [and gals] have been on the ball, coming up with some layouts for both the Tutorial level and Level 2. The following is just one of many concepts. 

The player is represented here as a blue dot, while golems are represented in yellow.

After making their way over to the golems up on a ledge, the player must use the double-tether mechanic to grab onto both of the golems.

After contact is achieved, the player then waits for the third golem [pacing back and forth along the red arrow's path]  to get into range, before tethering to it. The third golem will still continue along its path.

With a well-timed release of the third tether, this configuration will create a slingshot effect, allowing the player to travel much farther.

This travel leads the player to another island, which was previously inaccessible. 

Look Development: Colour

Another treat today, Nicole Brunken has been working on colouring Lazarus' architectural line work, in the hopes of securing what colors and values will be making it into the final game. 

As it was before, our inspiration is stemming from the saturated colours of the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Oh! How colourful!

Here is the direction we have so far: 

Architectural Consensus and a Treat

Along with the rest of the Environment Team, Lazarus has been at work trying to come up with the visual mash-up of architecture that the group had discussed before. The following is a few of the sketches she's devised so far.

And here's a treat! This is one of Lazarus' environment pieces, colored by Nicole Brunken, in order to get a feel for the colours that will be used in the new environment.

Concept Art Begins!

On the Environment front, the Concept phase is in full swing as block-outs are being made, puzzles are being created, and sketches are being sketched... The following are a few pieces made by Lazarus, in the hopes of getting the style of our environment nailed down.

A Cage/Home for potential 'flying' golems.