Flip and fall sequel - Devlog 2
Its been a little over a month since my last devlog, I am still hard at work on this game.
Lighting
So the first thing I worked on since the last devlog was the lighting system I'm implementing lighting by hand. Its done through a lightmap texture thats rendered at runtime based on the lights in the scene, that then gets multiplied by the unlit scene. For each light I block of the geometry and add it to a per-light shadow map texture.
When each light is then rendered to the lightmap texture, its cut out around the level geometry, making some neat looking shadows. So much for prioritising important work, but I'm pretty happy with the result. This is heavily based off again one of Noel Berry's blog posts, as well as some extra reading from a commentor on the post.
Broken lighting that looked cool.
Correct lighting.
Player movement
The player's movement has gotten a lot of work in this time. I've added a momentum mechanic, which will store the players momentum when jumping off of moving obstacles. They also have a dive move, that you can then jump out of.
The dive can also be performed on the ground to slide underneath tight spaces.
I want the dive to sort of have a risk factor when using it so it leave the player with a lot more velocity than a regular jump, meaning that if you aren't careful you can slide off platforms after landing.
Later, I might change the dive to look a little different in the air than on the ground.
Time travel
Time travel in this game work through portals that transport you to and from the present. Portals transport you to the past version of a level. For example, the first stage has you exploring the abandoned android factory. After passing through the portal, you will get to see what the factory looked like back in its prime.
You will also be equipped with a handheld time travel tool that lets you rewind the screen to its original state. You will have to use it to solve puzzles and collect all of the secrets left in the world.
Level gimmicks
So I also built a few objects that you will be able to interact with in the game. These gimmicks will completely change based on what time period you are in.
This is a conveyor belt in the present, due to inactivity in the factory, exposed wires have made touching them unsafe.
Back in the past though, the conveyor belts are working perfectly and if you time your jumps carefully you can use its speed to launch yourself even further.
Combat?
I might experiment with some sort of combat because the game obviously has androids as the enemies and it would be odd to not fight them at all. I really want any combat to weave well with the heavy focus on platforming because a lot of games really separate the two systems when integrating them together could add extra depth to both systems at once.
Take for instance sonics homing attack, that turns combat into an action that also serves as a platforming mechanic, using it for both attacking enemies and for quickly navigating to smaller targets like bounce pads.
Wrap up
Whenever I talk about my games in person a lot of people ask what it's called. I usually have no idea. That's all I have to share for this devlog!