XL Update!

Again like last week there was a huge gap in posts, but as the level has progressed my balance has freely had to switch between the creations of assets, their placement in the level and Debugging – in addition to work on other projects so I haven’t had much time to blog. Although the result is that I have since done much work:

Created a working cutscene that is sparked by pressing the X button (This was to introduce the Indian form to the player, in addition to state the scenario):

Self-Reflection Moment:

Frustratingly I learnt about Stencyl attributes after creating this cutscene. My workflow before attributes meant that I had to make 17 different behaviours that were specifically tailored to the page they move to. An example being:

For Dialogue A -

Always

If X was Pressed:

-          Switch Scenes to Dialogue B and Crossfade for 1 second

However Attributes mean you can create a universal behaviour that runs like so:

Always

If X was Pressed:

-          Switch Scenes to NEXT SCENE (Attribute) and Crossfade for 1 second

This means that this attribute can be applied to all of the scenes and an option appears where you can specify which scene is meant by the statement ‘NEXT SCENE’ (example for Dialogue A, you’d apply the behaviour and set ‘NEXT SCENE’ as Dialogue B). Knowing this before making the level would have reduced my behaviour count by 16 in addition to taking much less time. However now that I know about attributes I’ve been able to create better behaviours that are more applicable to other objects.

Updated Border Graphic:

One thing that really bugged me about my game was how bad the border graphic was. I wanted it to look like it was coming out of a book and this just wasn’t being achieved by what I had quickly made last week so I scanned in an actual book to make the border as to enhance the quality of the visuals:

Dangers:

I added two types of dangers to the level; a large spikey block that travels up and down very quickly and a crow that drops explosives. Currently both need debugging as the crow does not drop dynamite as it should, while the spikey blocks move too fast.

Other Assets Added:

Disappearing Blocks (This needs to be debugged though as a friend play testing revealed that they switch too fast and are almost impossible to time. They also move when they switch which is problematic)

A Broken Rope Bridge

Other Pieces of Terrain

Reflection: All of these need more detail in my opinion but with a second level to produce this is something that will be placed on the ‘if I have time list’ as they are not essential issues like debugging or level construction.

Final Level 1 View:

Other Work Done:

The Title Page:

Whilst remaking my border graphic I decided to add a simple title page that by clicking on the title, the player would be taken to the level. I also just placed the protagonist here so that people could mess around with the character on this screen (it also worked well should I need to very quickly playtest the character on a screen that loads quickly in Stencyl).

Design Document Pages:

Just some of the Design pages made

As I’ve been making assets and gameplay decisions, I’ve been writing and constructing my design document pages. Currently it covers all elements of gameplay although it still needs a little expansion on the platform, target audience and competitive analysis.

Targets for Next Week:

-Begin work on Level 2

-Debug Mira and the Crow

-More levels?