Took another crack at the landscape texture. I can probably find a better way to do stylized landscapes and other textures eventually but for now it looks better to have flat rough colors than the high detailed textures I was using. It always appears to work well when I make it a simple texture, have to remember to stick to the aesthetic no matter what. Made sure the clock cottage level lived up to its name so I added large towers across the map that will come into play later on then I added a bunch of clocks in the cabin itself which will also be more functional besides just ticking and tocking. Made sure to add sound so it can be rather ominous. I pushed the camera further down as well when indoors because it was still too high and it was more convenient to put it closer to the shoulder.
An important aspect of the game for me is how the player is part of a temporal world, and certain things will be affected or even remain destroyed when they come back to life or “load” game. With that I had to remember how I implemented saving and loading the level game data. It’s difficult to remember all the things I did even if I did it myself, since I’m constantly piling on new info in my head. I think I just need to limit myself even more in what I add to the game so I don’t stretch too far where I end up with too many pieces I can’t even put together. Thankfully once I reviewed the blueprint, most of the logic came back to me. I made sure the savepoints stayed lit and the physics objects would remember being destroyed. The tricky part was adjusting the clocks. I wanted the clocks to advance in time or at least track at what position the arms were when the player saved. It took a lot of testing because I couldn’t find the proper way to adjust the rotation of each individual clock arm for all the separate clocks. The local, world, and relative rotation still confuse me but I think I’m getting the hang of it. And I had trouble with the saving function because I was accidentally erasing all the save data I was supposed to keep. Eventually it all came into place and the clocks worked as I wanted them too. The keen observers will notice the “passage of time” once they respawn or load game, that is if they even die.
Next few updates were smaller and easier to accomplish. Went into the texture of the floating text and made it glow so it was easier to see and read for the save points. Added a small tomato “farm” beside the cabin for a nice addition to the scene. Then I added a few physics objects around the level, small rocks. I have to improve the physics objects some time. The sounds are lacking and perhaps some impact effects like dust would make it feel more weighty. Improved the blueprint as well so that I can adjust the damage of the object easily without having to dig through the code.
All in all good progress for the day. Next up is working on the puzzles that have to be solved in order to progress the stage. I need to conceptualize it very clearly so I won’t have too much trouble when I try to make it in the game. I have a good idea of what the puzzles will be like, I just need to figure out how to adapt it through the engine.
GoldenGratus Games 