Dev Summary - Fractured Mind
The down side to participating in a game jam is finding time to keep track of everything you've done and learned. But I'm going to try my best to recount everything and record it here.
First, if you want to give it a try Fractured Mind is available to play on itch.io for free. CLICK HERE
Player Controller - Mechanics
On this project I was responsible for gameplay programming for the most part. I started with what I was most familiar with, player controllers. I kept it really simple, using a Character Controller. Initially the design was to use 3D assets but restrict movement along the z-axis.
I was making changes to the Character Controller for most of the life of the project, adding new mechanics and testing things out. I started with pushing blocks. I decided on using a timed trigger to move them, if you’re pushing against the block for X seconds, it’ll move a short distance in that direction. It didn’t work out very well to start but with some persistence I was able to get it where I wanted it.
Next thing on the list was climbing ledges. Unfortunately I didn’t have a proper animation for this, so it looks more like levitation but it still worked. Unfortunately we needed to cut it out of the game because of the missing animation but I still had fun figuring this one out. Biggest take-away from this was that you can’t lerp a players movement while the character controller is enabled. I created prefabs for left and right ledge climbs, it was made of up a single trigger collider and a couple of empty gameobjects I used to lerp the player to.
Something else that I worked on that also got cut was ladder climbing. I got it working on a basic level but again had to cut it due to lack of animation. I wish we had more animation completed I really would have liked to work on transitioning states for climbing up and down ladders, and getting on/off from the top and bottom. Maybe next time :) This time though, I just used trigger colliders at the top and bottom of the ladder, press E to attach to the ladder, and while you’re on the ladder the player input changed from UP changing Z position to changing Y position.
Enemy AI - NavMesh/PathFinding
This was my first time trying out Unity’s navmesh pathfinding system and it was a blast! I had a ton of fun working on the enemies in this game. The first thing I did after figuring out the waypoint system was get them to “see” the player.
I used a custom collider created from a mesh I tossed together in blender. It was a cone shape to mimic range of sight. These guys have almost no peripheral vision lol. So once the enemy detected the player in it’s vision I had it shoot a ray to see if there were any obstacles in the way. This way you weren’t being detected through walls. I also implemented a distraction mechanic, where you could whistle and if you were within range the enemy would come looking for you, and if it didn’t see you it would do a quick sweep of the immediate area and then head back to it’s pathing route. I used Random.InsideUnitCircle to acheive that and it worked like a charm. I also got to play around with particle effects and ended up creating the fire/cloud effect you see on the enemies using my own textures.
All-in-all I learned so much during this project. Working with a team is VERY different from working solo on projects but it also allows for some awesome ideas you never would have had on your own. I learned how to better organize my project code to optimize for easier scaling, which I am already starting to implement on my next project! :)
Anyway, that’s it from me. If this was a little rambly I apologize, I’m writing this at the wee hours of the morning after finishing the night shift at work. xD Thanks for reading!
