Now that we’re on week 6, we’re closer and closer to the halfway point and the end of the semester. This week, we worked more on finishing up our player verbs, UI, VFX, and large environment art assets.
Mechanics
Both still a little buggy, but we’ve added a crouching feature to the game. Crouching is a signature move for stealth games and gives the player more opportunities to hid from the enemies. In addition, we’ve iterated on the shoot mechanism in the game.
From the last playtest, we’ve noticed that players want to engage with the enemies. They don’t want to just hid, they want to fight. But this is a stealth game and a robust combat system is out of scope. We decided to let the player be able to shoot enemies but limit their resources so they are discouraged from engaging in combat.
We’re working on having the enemies be stunned when they are first hit. It currently takes two bullets to kill the enemies while the player only has 5 bullets. There will be charging stations but they will still be limited. In addition, if the player wants to distract the enemy, they can shoot a nearby object and th enemy will go over to investigate.
Art and VFX:
In the Rifts universe, there is what is called Ley Line. Surges of psyhic energy that collect in the air. We want to implement this into our level because it is a signature of the universe. The player can follow a line of light to a weapon charge alter. There they can collet the psyhic energy and the line will disappear.
Using houdini, we have manipulated a simple mesh to become our in game ley lines. In the future, we want to create an energy ball that will be the commulation of the psyhic energy.
As we incorporate more weapon components we will need a bullet UI and charging station. The silver bullet UI, tells the player how many weapon charges they have left. In additon, we have also been working on more UI for the shadow step mechanic. From the last playtest, we’ve noticed that many people didn’t know when their skills have been all used up. Therefore, we have made more UI components to show when the player can sprint, use shadow step, or use their sixth sense.
Preparing for Halves:
Halves is right around the corner! Halves is an opportunity to show all of the CMU ETC faculity what we have achieved thus far. QuestLine is aiming to present our progress on the mechanics and visuals that we have implemented so far. We want to take this time to ensure that, we have the tools to finish this level!
Next Steps:
In the days to come, we will continue to playtest, itertate on the game mechanics and work on the Halves presentation. The feedback from Halves will dictate what we prioritize for the rest of the semester.