Enemies / Interaction / Puzzles

This week's development was to further puzzle interaction. This resulted in the development of two new levels that each introduced a new mechanic. The effectiveness of the implementation of these mechanics show promise for the future levels of this game, as there is a high level of flexibility in how the levels can be constructed.

The development for level three began by using a similar structure to that of level one and two, but instead of simple platforms, interlocking science labs were used as the setting for this scene. To fill in the scene as the main obstacles scientists characters were designed using a circle sprite to symbolize a lab coat with a smaller flesh-coloured circle to symbolize a head. These scientists have a scientist  movement script attached that lerps the scientist characters between three points known as the end, mid and start. A table with a computer as well as a few white objects fill the rooms, symbolizing scientist equipment as well as contributing as obstacles. To have the scientist interact as enemies instead of simple obstacles, an enemy collision script was designed and added to the player character so that on collision, it checks if the collided object is a part of the enemies layer. If it is, the level is reset. An example of this interaction can be seen in the gif below.

Level 3

My roommate tested level three, and completed the level on his second attempt, as the scientist ruined his first attempt. He found it more challenging after the first two levels and commented how he had to strategize slightly differently to complete it. Throughout his testing he did not encounter any bugs, and scientist code worked as intended. An example of this level running can be seen in a gif below.

Scientest interaction

Level four has the first environmental interaction in the game. This level once again takes place in a laboratory scene, where the player has to avoid two scientists. What makes this level different from previous levels, is a laser security wall that prevents the player from teleporting into the final room, the wall is also on the enemy layer so a player can fail the level by touching it. To succeed in the level, the player has to deactivate this laser wall by colliding with the button object protected behind a roaming scientist. To achieve this, a button toggle script was written for the button object. This script says that if the button is triggered by a collider belonging to an object on the player layer, the button will turn green and the laser wall group will deactivate so that the character can move through. A full run through of this level, including the button interaction, can be seen in the gif below.

Level 4

My roommate tested level four and without prompting managed to work out how to get to the button deactivating the lasers, completing the level successfully.

In order to have this game functional for itch.io, a script was attached to the end level square that makes it so the character immediately moves to the next level upon completion. If the player is on the final level then they will just move back to level one.

Creating this code made it so that all four levels can be tested in one go to ensure consistency in running. This resulted in finding some bugs in all the lerp code’s timing. This is now fixed to ensure consistency.

This week's progress is a launching point for possible future level interactions such as enemies that seek or pick up items.