Coding. It’s pretty much all I’ve been doing for the last week. The blog is lagging behind what I’m doing and I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty about it. Not least of all because I won’t be doing anything for the next 2-3 weeks as I’ll be on holiday, far far away in Shang Hai, and even a tiny bit of Japan.
But here is the good part! A lot of stuff has been done, and not just the funky behind the scenes stuff that none of you really care about. The best way to see things happening is just to watch the video, in which I got a little help from Apple and Kirin for the discussion (Help may be a strong word), buts let’s just go through a few details here for those who care about such things.
Spawners:
I created spawners that have loads of variables.they can spawn any GameObject, all cached beforehand so it’s not instantiating at run time, or any range of GameObjects, each with percentile weightings.. They can have a rate. They can be emitted in bursts. They can be launched with a velocity or a force. In a direction, between two angles, or sprayed out in all directions. They can be rotated or spun, and they can emit from a point, or a box or sphere area. Cool yeah? Did we use it to spray mines out or slow spinning girders that you need to move around. No!. All we have done so far is make if spew out generic rocks.
Teleporters:
Oh Yeah baby. These funky things can be circle or box based, and can teleport you to an array of points. You have options as to whether or not you maintain your velocity, maintain your direction, orientation, and they can be selective as to what they do and don’t teleport. We haven’t really done much with these either.
ObjectActivators:
I don’t have a better name for these yet. Basically they are trigger based switches that can do a bunch of stuff. Specifically, activate any number of animators when you enter them, or exit them, or if you choose, if you shoot at them. They can also play a sound, or sequence of sounds. They could be used to make a turbine charge and do stuff, but alas, all we have actually done with them so far is move some walls around a bit.
PainZones and DeathZones:
These do exactly what you’d expect. They cause pain, and death: an apt metaphor for life in most respects really.
GravityZones:
These are zones, that have gravity. Tweakable gravity with a simulated mass, and a choice between squared or linear falloff. Linear almost always works better in gameplay terms. It can also repulse things if you like. So far, we’ve only used this for a level with a singularity in the center. Fun bendy bullets.
The next blog will also about Space Time but for those of you waiting for The Living Dungeon Fix it looks like that will finally be coming at the start of March. If not, it’ll be Josh’s fault! That’s right folks. Josh is back and he fully expects to break everything! Again! Seriously though, it’ll be nice to have him in again.
At this point I’d normally say that if you want to know more you can get in touch with us on social media, but since us, is practically just me, and I’m going to be on the other side of the planet for 3 weeks, your best bet is actually e-mail. Support(at)radiationburn.net. Those outlets do still exist and can be interesting though, so check out. Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube.