Changing the Level Order

Make Room for Sand Box

Last night at about 3 AM I had a idea that woke me up about my game levels. Right now I have the Underground level & training area where "Bud the Spud" starts out and then level 02 which is the back yard and then we go to level 03 which is the muddy bog area where the Tree House is and exit pipe to the Grain Elevator level, but what I need is a Kids Sand Box level that can be right after the back yard area because the kind of go together, then have the Tree House level after that, so what I've been working on as level 03 will become Level 04 and the Sand Box Level will be level 03. I hope that made sense? In level 04 I can introduce the "Hunter Potato Beetles" I had mentioned in last night's post. 

The Sand box level can have all sorts of cool stuff like toys, a sand castle, I can do some more with my "Toy Wind Up Robots." Do a very simple terrain around the Sand Box just as a lead in and out of that area, keep it very simple with only a few obstacles. I've got so many cool ideas for toys and challenges in the Sand Box. I can't wait to get started on it. But seeing how Level 04 (formerly level 03) is nearly done I'm going to finish that up first.

Robot Avoidance Testing II

I mentioned earlier today about needing to add something extra along this passageway in order to make getting past the toy wind up robot a little more difficult for Bud the Spud. I went with the kite as a good object because it's long and a good size to lean up against the Tree House wall and rotate it's angle a little to take up space in the passageway making it more narrow and cluttered. The robot is still pretty easy to avoid but if you are not careful you'll get Bud "Zapped!" And since they are just stupid wind up toys don't forget that they dish out quite a bit of punishment which more than makes up for their simple minded nature ;)

Note: In some future blog posts I'm going to introduce game tips like this:

Game Tip 01: You've been trying to jump from rock to rock and sometimes you end up right on the edge of a rock with no where to go, death is certain right? Not always, sometimes you can save Bud if he is too close to the edge of a rock in the middle of a deadly mud bog. Here's how:
Do a extra high jump by jumping twice and pull back on your direction pad (d pad) or [ S ] on the keyboard, while Bud is high in the air he'll actually move backwards a small amount, keep doing this until you have enough rock under you to better maneuver into a good jump position.

Robot Avoidance Testing

As I had mentioned earlier this morning that I had planned to make the first wind up toy robot in the Tree House a bit more of a challenge to avoid. I've since made the trap door as you can see here which serves very well for blocking "Bud's" direction on the one side, I've also added a lot more toy wooden blocks to make the corridor more narrow to traverse. It's still very easy for Bud to avoid the robot though so I think I need to place something else along that wall with the toy blocks, Not sure what though as I'm trying to watch my poly counts because although those toy wooden blocks are fairly small, they do have beveled edges and angled corners as you can see if you look closely at them. So they will add up to be expensive I'm sure if I use too many of them, so far they seem to play with no problems at all in the editor and my Draw Calls are not bad at all so I think I'm doing really OK in that department. But yeah I'm wanting very much to make Bud's avoidance of this robot a lot more of a challenge so as bud will have to time running through the passageway a little more carefully before the robot turns around to walk back down the corridor between the blocks and trap door. I shortened the distance between his auto waypoints so that has helped a lot but I need to make something to place just after the toy blocks... Hmmm maybe an old kite because I can keep that pretty low poly and still have it look good and it might just be big and bulky enough to extend the obstacles along that wall just enough?? There's a thought ;)

Tweakings

Feels like I didn't get much accomplished yesterday even though I was hard at it all day. I downloaded the latest version of Unity 3D because I had read online about "Light Probes" and was very anxious to try them out but it turns out that all the cool new addition they have made to the latest version of unity like built in Path Finding, the Light Probes and a bunch of other cool stuff is all pro. only :( Oh well, at least the software is up to date and hopefully less buggy which will hopefully mean less crashes ;)

Anyways I was mostly making a lot of tweaks after updating Unity, I had to re bake my light maps because the old ones were "FUBAR" for some reason. I was toying around quite a bit in the Tree House trying to make it so the toy wind up robot in the main part of the Tree House is a little bit more of a challenge to pass since he just walks back and forth between two auto waypoints. I placed in some more wooden apple crates and arranged them so as they effectively block off the back part so that way Bud the Spud will have to go past the robot. I need to make an open trap door to use as a wall to also block off the path he must take along the side of the opening in the floor he gets into the Tree House by so that way he will have a more narrow corridor to walk through with the toy wooden blocks on one side and the open trap door on the other with the robot walking back and forth between the two sets of obstructions, and that should do nicely for more of a challenge in the Tree House. Next I'll need to do something similar on the upper deck as that wind up toy robot is just as easy to avoid. I'm not sure what though, maybe another apple crate and toy block arrangement or another type of wooden box that I'll need to make, paint cans or other toys maybe?? I was thinking about a pushable block that perhaps he will have to move out of the way covering the hole in the upper deck floor that he needs to drop through onto the branches below in order to find the 2nd key??

Toy Wooden Blocks Added



I added some toy wooden blocks to the Tree House for bud to use to help avoid the toy wind up robot in the main part of the Tree House. They are more for scenic detail than actual use although I think if I was to make it so the toy robot just patrolled back and forth along this one side of the Tree House then they would serve more of a purpose in helping Bud avoid the robot, maybe I might experiment a bit with that just to make another challenge to overcome in the Tree House. But they turned out very nice and I'm sure I will no doubt find more practical uses for them later on down the road as the game develops.

More Scenic Details to Level 03

After tweaking my "Toy Wind Up Robots" for Bud to deal with in the Tree House I started adding some scenic details to level 03. Here you can see "Bud the Spud" with an old beat up box of Mashed Potatoes. Needless to say this is a real WTF moment for Bud. I'm actually thinking of him saying something like that first time he comes across a trashed used box of mashed potatoes. Not really sure what the best way to approach that is yet as I only want him to say it the one time, maybe a game object that activates when collided with and then destroys itself once the audio clip has completed might be a way to go here??

Next I added some "Toxic Waste Barrels" to this muddy bog filled area. Here you can see Bud standing on a hill overlooking just one of the piles of dumped toxic waste barrels. I felt the fog was a little too dense so I've adjusted that which means I'll need to go back to level 02 and adjust it there too, Unless I leave it and figure on it being like the fog has lifted a little between levels, might mean I'll need to play with my sun's azimuth as well maybe??

Robot Character Tweaking

I thought I would take a little time today to tweak my Toy Wind Up Robot Character a little more. You see because he is using a projector for his "Blob Shadow Effect" which works very well for characters that are on the ground but because my toy robots are in the Tree House one of the things I noticed when I was testing out my game is that the projector casts the "Blob Shadow Effect" right through the floor of the Tree House and onto not only the tree below but also the ground. On the ground you do not see it very well because it gets wider and more dispersed the farther away in projects, you can see it clearly projecting through the floor of the Tree House. So I thought I would use my old method of a plane under the robot with the "Blob Shadow Effect" as it works better for this character who is above ground level.

I also added a couple of "Point Lights" to his arms with a "Flicker Script" attached so his lightning bolts will have a bit more of a realistic look to them. I'm going to see if I can find a nice sound effect for little electrical discharges to REALLY make him sweet!

Wind Up Robots Added to the Tree House

It took me a little while to play around with their waypoints but the Toy Wind Up Robots are now on patrol in the Tree House in level 03 of my "Bud the Spud" game. I was having some problems trying to keep the robot on the top look out deck from wanting to walk towards the waypoints in the actual Tree House, I had to do a lot of experimenting moving them around so as they would not be in line with the ones below. After much tweaking and playing around I think I have something workable. The robot in the Tree House walks along 4 waypoints arranged in a sort of box pattern of 3 sides;

_____
|        |
|        |

Sort of like that across the floor of the Tree House. The robot above walks a similar pattern, it took me some tweaking to get it so as he passes very close the hole in the deck that Bud must fall through onto the tree branch below. That way if he's not looking out and takes to long trying to figure out which angle is best to drop down from and is not aware then a sparking wind up robot will zap him.

Wind Up Robot & Other Discoveries

Well I've had quite the busy weekend with all sorts of tweaking going on and trying to figure out new stuff. One thing that had always been bugging me very badly about my blood splats effects was that because I'm using a top down projector to instantiate blood splats whenever my enemies are killed by "Bud the Spud" although it left behind a very nice blood splat effect that formed well against uneven terrain what would happen was if another enemy say was following close behind and would walk through the blood splat the projector would also project that blood splat on top of the enemy which looked very odd. Also when my enemies died and left behind a "Fertilizer Pellet" for Bud to pick up they too would be covered in blood from the instantiated projector, which I did not mind so much, but my other enemies passing through the effect, well that was another matter and did bother me quite a bit. I discovered over the weekend that if I place my game characters onto another layer like the "static" layer for instance and tell my projector to ignore that layer then it works perfectly. I guess I could make a new layer and call it "Characters" for simplicity. But in any event it works so now my projectors no longer cast a blood splat on top of my enemy characters if they pass through a nice gooey looking blood splat on the floor, How cool is that?

Next up was the challenge of creating my "Wind Up Robot" to patrol around in the Tree House for level 03. I wanted to be able to have him wander back and forth between "Auto Way Points" but I also wanted him to emit sparks that can hurt Bud if he gets hit by them... you might recall me mentioning that was my goal? Well it took me the better part of the day to get it working but I finally got it just how I want it using the "Walker Boys AiPatrol Script." I had to make some changes like "Tag" robot with a name; "robot" and then in the "Controller Collider Hurt Script" I had to add a few if statements and add a few Variables to the "Ai Patrol Script" and Viola! Success!

That particle effect for his sparking lightning bolts was fun too, I might tweak it a little more to add a secondary effect for a small shower of sparks to accompany the lightning bolts, I'll see ;) But what I've got works very well and now I have a walking wind up toy robot that will patrol and inflict damage, he does not attack Bud deliberately as he is simply a wind up toy but he'll dish out a good 35 damage which more than makes up for his lack of intelligence ;)