Devlog 2

Game Design & Programming: Our main priorities for this week were refining and expanding our controls and creating our Tech Demo. Following our pitch presentation in the prior week, we did some experimentation with the bat’s movement; unlocking rotations for the x and z axis’ to see how it would fair, adjusting the altitude gained from flapping, and disabling the awkward automatic forward movement previously present. From this, we learned a few things.

One: we needed a more natural and reliable form of horizontal movement through the air. This became the gliding mechanic. Players could already use flapping to turn and gain vertical height, but now with gliding, they can use that height to cover sizable horizontal distances. Gliding adds more depth to the movement beyond just flapping and solves the issue we had for forward movement.

Two: a better camera was necessary, one which allows players to look around so they could get a better idea of where they were and where they’d be going. This became the fully independent freelook camera present in the current build of the game.

Level Design: Another focus for this week was level design. We’d already decided on open levels populated by challenges to be completed for collectibles, inspired by 3D Mario games such as Mario Odyssey and Banjo-Kazooie, and since then we’ve decided on many of these levels we’d have, and how the player would progress through them.

We settled on four levels arranged in a diamond shape, with a small tutorial that the player starts in at the bottom, which then branches out into two separate easier levels before converging at a final harder level that only unlocks after acquiring enough collectibles.

We’ve also begun building these levels in-game as well, though currently we’ve only made significant progress in the initial tutorial.

Aside from that, we’ve also been discussing what challenges we want to have scattered around these levels to complete for collectibles. There are the hoops that we’ve had since the first build, and we added checkpoints which can set the player’s respawn position when reached. We’ve also had ideas for moving objects you can catch out of the air, false walls or invisible collectibles that could be sussed out with echolocation or keys that you’d need to pick up and move to open up locks. This last one we’ve already started testing for.

Some ideas seem unlikely to be realized, however, such as a giant monster that would chase you throughout the final level. It would simply require too many resources to be feasible with our scope.

Art & Animation: Since our last demo, we added several new assets and models to the game including a fully rigged and improved bat character, a blood drop for collectibles, and a tree model. Then, we populated the scene with them as prefabs and made animations for them to make them more engaging. Our goal is to keep improving the assets and the animations based on player feedback.

Music and Sound: Over the past week a lot of sounds were created. We found better sounds for wing flapping online as well as creating some sound effects for gliding. The gliding sound effects were made by modifying the surface noise of a vinyl plugin’s output. Other sound effects were made for collecting blood drops which combined a water drop sound along with a creature eating sound effect. The checkpoints were also given a little jingle using the same organ plugin that was used for the remix of Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. The main level theme also had some small edits to make the volume consistent throughout the track.

The checkpoint jingle. A layer of “chiptune” notes to add some flavour.

The higher frequencies’ volume was lowered to remove the rotating static from the virtual record player to make it sound like heavy wind. The “1950” setting was used as well to create a lighter wind sound as it wasn’t as bassy.

Next steps: When it comes to our next steps, we’ll be dedicating most of our time to the next upcoming deliverable: a full design document for the game.

In conclusion and considering all of these points, we’ll also be working on building out the remaining levels; programming more of the challenges mentioned above, and properly implementing them. Additionally, there are smaller things we’d like to get working, such as a secondary non-controllable camera that follows the bat more closely as an alternative to freelook one we currently have and a system that decreases altitude gained if players flap too rapidly, to prevent button mashing that sends them sky-high.