Week 11 - Bloc Party

This week's focus was on Blocking out the levels of the game.

I now have a firm idea of the levels that I need to build, and what purpose they serve.

The Isle of Air, Is the playground at the end with every feature of the game that has been introduced so far. I have broken it down into small, near-identical arenas, connected by tunnels/corridors.

The Isle of Fire, however, is heavily used in the tutorial process.

It has a lot fewer arenas, and each of them is much larger. There is a stronger emphasis on learning the basics , and setting up the tone of the game

The Hub World is a little oasis, where the player will relax and spend time interacting with NPCs. It is also where they will find portals to other Isles. The hill with the portals and the Spellbook are really the only necessary components, the rest is set dressing.

Level Streaming

In a previous discussion with one of my lecturers, I discussed the advantages of using teleporting around a big map over loading in new levels.

I did some research and decided that what I wanted to do was stream the levels. I had never done this before, but I had watched a great tutorial on youtube, and decided that was the way to go. That tutorial is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzGcVDUDU5g

This method used Event Dispatchers which I had not used until this project. They are another feature that I think could be really powerful, but I'm not quite sure when to implement them.

This Week in Review

This week has actually been productive. For all the big things that I have added such as a new level system, I have made countless tweaks to so many parts of the game. Finetuning the magic all the time. Integrating more and more UI elements such as potions and coins.

I have started writing short lists of things to do, trying to prioritise the things that are needed to advance the tutorial narrative.