New Year Update... Additional Gameplay, Levels and Thoughts

Due to the christmas break I wasn't able to work on my Final Year Project, However, it gave me a good amount of time to think of additional designs that I would like to implement within the game/level I am creating. Intially, my first thoughts are to scrap the original control system - WASD movement and hold left click to shoot. Due to having many issues with this, I don't think it will be feasible to get working within my small time frame remaining, I will continue to try to implement it, but for now I will be going for a more traditional approach; Right Click will move the player and holding left click (possibly with a shift modifier to stand still) will continuously shoot.

As such, I've started to add additional assets into the level to hopefully finish the whole stage within the next week or two. However, The initial size of my game/level is still too large, so I feel I'll have to do a decent amount of play testing to decide if the size is adequate or not. The room I have created is another iteration of previous rooms, however, the narrative is progressing in small increments, I might change this within the next room and go straight into the "zergd" lab section, everything destroyed and a lot more enemies - Again these will all be placed last as I can test if the areas of large enough in each zone to house the number of enemies I want to create.

 
Above is a small overview of what the room will contain, I had some trouble adding in assets and placement of them overall to try and stay within the Laboratory style but not feel the exact same, Due to this the next hallway/room will change drastically with assets and color palette. I am started to think I'm the limitations of the engine are taking effect now. The 6 palette tileset is making all the environments to samey, as such playing on 1 (one) axis is hurting what I can achieve or hoped to achieve for this level design process. As such my limited knowledge of the engine is probably the biggest hindrance for this project.

The region sections again are similar, but I've added a new feature in for weapon pick ups, as showcased in the bottom right corner. This will feature every so often and will add a new dynamic for weapon changes through out the level helping to dispatch enemies quicker - limited amount will likely become a factor for balance purposes.


A broader image to showcase the level from an aerial view without seeing the in engine helpers (regions, sound emitters, decal points etc). Sound emitters will be placed near events as described in previous events. I still feel sound design is a key focus on how immersive a level can be for the player. However, I've not accessed all the sound files yet to see what is fitting for each emitter I will be using, Assuming these won't be too difficult to find, I could always make my own.


A different perspective for the room created. The hologram at the forefront should draw the players attention and will serve as a weapons pick up area, though this can be bypassed. Flooding the room with enemies may draw attention away and change the dynamic of the level, Play testing to begin soon.

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