Week 1 - Set-up & Player Mechanics
Assets
Tools used (to-date):
- Unity3d
- Trello
- GitHub
Future development tools:
- Autodesk 3ds Max
- Zbrush
- Subtance Painter
- Audacity
- Studio One
3rd Party Assets (to-date):
- ProBuilder (Unity)
- ProGrid (Unity)
- HDRP (High Definition Render Pipeline, Unity)
- Medieval Weapons
3rd Party Asset considerations:
Narrative
Tribe village – Exposition
- Your character looks around and sees a small village nestled in the welcoming arms of a mountain range.
- Smell of smoke and general chatter brings you back to your thoughts.
- Your eyes scanning the forest that is just out of reach from where your temporary settlement lays; secluded and safe.
- You decide to explore your home, wandering throughout the small area and come upon a place to trade, weapons, and huts of various shapes and sizes.
- Able to speak to some of the villagers, however pain overcomes you and your vision warps slightly causing you to grip your head in confusion and pain.
- You head back to your home where your mother awaits, greeting her, before laying down some furs and falling asleep.
Inside hut – Inciting Incident
- You wake up, the hut afire and puddled in blood.You scream, shouting for help. However, when the others arrive everything is fine, your mind was hallucinating.
[Continues after flashback]
Around a camp fire - Continued
- Facing your mother, and the shaman, who says;
- Your heart is haunted, and your mind is in a dark place. You are being exiled from your home but only until you defeat your demons.
- You are handed a spear and a bow, as you walkout towards the forest. The sun setting as the forest darkens, its mouth stretching open in an ominous manner as the shadows consume you.
Middle location
- Here you can choose one of three directions.Each direction leads you on a short journey to defeat a certain type of demon.
- Each direction is equipped to a different element.
Path 1 – Darkness/Loneliness
- Puzzles.
- Boss.
Path 2 – Winter/Cold
- Puzzles.
- Boss.
Path 3 – Fire/Evil
- Puzzles.
- Boss.
Tribe village – Resolution.
- Arrives back at the village in welcoming arms.
- The sun glimmers in your eyes as it rises.
- Fades to black.
Characters
Nzir –
- Your character.
- Young male.
- Naive/scared.
Shaman –
- Elder male.
- Position of knowledge and all knowing.
Nzir’s mother –
- Middle-aged female.
- Loving/thoughtful/worried.
Villagers (Small interactions dialogue) –
- Man making a spear tip.
- Woman cooking food/Gathering.
Boss 1 –
- Darkness Boss.
Boss 2 –
- Ice Boss.
Boss 3 –
- Fire Boss.
Note: Not all Boss and character descriptions are finalized and there is still room for improvement.
Sprints
Character Controller
Initial development began with a Rigidbody Controller for the player. It was important for the player to feel in control, give enough feedback, yet portray realistic movement. Two problems were indicated during this process.
- The Rigidbody controller felt like a rolling ball, not a human-being. This really decreased the immersion, but also the necessary feedback to the player.
- While climbing onto objects such as blocks, the capsule collider would stick to the edge of the wall, resulting in unnecessary fall damage after falling. After numerous testing and attempts to fix this issue through the use of correct physics materials and Dynamic Collisions, the physics were not mimicking the solution that I had previously imagined.
As a solution to this problem I decided to use the Unity Character Controller component alongside by script. Adjusting artificial gravity and relying solely on the scripts rather than the Unity physics engine. This character controller introduced numerous player mechanics that gave the player freedom to explore different environments. Jumping, crouching, different movement speed types, and a dampened look rotation improved the quality of the game-play. These will feedback into later story-narrative game-play, and will not become useless features. If they are not used later on then they will simply be removed to keep only what is necessary.
With a toggle crouch the player was able to stand up and clip through objects above them. This was fixed with the use of Raycasts. I tested various Raycasts, however the SphereCast seemed to be the only feasible solution due to the radius of the character controller being sphere shape. This Raycast was directed upwards, and detect if an object were hit. If an object was detected then the player would be unable to toggle the crouch and become blocked.
For prototyping I have set up a miniature level utilizing ProBuilds and ProGrids. This will be used for white boxing levels later on, and then replaced with 3d models.
Player Management
Health will become a unique selling-point to the game, as for when the game progresses your sanity will decline; therefore your maximum health will also decline making the game progressively more difficult for the player. A steady climb in challenge, but easily adjustable. The player management scripts take control of health, damage taken from fall damage/other sources, and regeneration of health over time if the player has not been attacked.
Upcoming Sprints
Combat
The player should be equipped with a Bow and a Spear that can be swapped back and forth. For prototyping Medieval Weapons asset pack is used as it comes with rigged weapons that can be freely animated. Animations are important for realistic feedback and immersion. The bow will be given a cross hair in which will close-in after holding the aim button. Shortly the player will run out of breathe, and will be put on a short cool-down until complete. The spear will have three attack animations that will be randomized, which will in-turn keep the player on their toes and interested.
Following on from this sprint I will be laying out the level with ProBuilds and collecting all necessary 3rd party assets to piece together puzzle ideas that fit alongside the narrative.
