General:

We are now in the production phase of our project and this means we get to actually make the assets we are going to use in the game and the mechanics that will make the game playable and fun! This week the our team worked on the main art/mechanics for the game. 

Art: 

We started working with a tilable sprite sheet to make the platforms, this is a template we use to test the tiles and how well they work in game. Lateron we are going to swap these blockout shapes out for the actual platforms used in the game.

For the character we worked more on shape,design and figuring out the colors. The character has gone through a few changes regarding the outfits and hair styles.

We also looked into how to make a pixelated particle system that would work for all our particles in game. These particles are your standard made particles but we added a custom shader graph to make the sprites look pixelated. We can also change the bit size on the go to ensure that the effects match the bit size of the main character/environement. With this method we can make whatever sprite shape we want and add it into the shader and it will make it pixelated and ready to implement in our game.

For the environment we started of thinking about the main composition and finding out what panels were most needed. Starting of with a bright yellow background plane we slowly builded up the layers for the environment. This week the focus was on getting the general feeling right and creating a solid base to work.  Aside from the far background we also started thinking about the more nearer panels (mainly the ones where the crowd will be placed on). This still needs some refining but is a good benchmark to where we're headed.

Coding:

As we transitioned into the production phase of our project, we began by incorporating the player sprite and tiles provided by our artist into the Unity scene. Our primary focus was on implementing a movement system that felt both responsive and smooth, with particular attention paid to the challenges posed by the multiple platforms and jumping areas within our level. Because of that, we introduced a coyote time system to ensure a more fluid gameplay experience.

Coyote time is a concept that refers to a brief window of time in which a player can still perform certain actions, even if they have technically left a platform or object. In Unity,  this is often implemented as a small delay after the player character has left a platform or ledge, during which the game will still register their character as being "on" the platform or ledge.

In order to provide players with greater control over their characters, we have implemented a jump system that allows for varying jump heights based on the duration of the jump button press. In addition, we extensively experimented with the gravity scale to ensure a jump feel that is well-suited to the scale of our level. To further enhance the player experience, we have also taken measures to prevent them from getting stuck in walls when jumping against them.

We started out with the core mechanics, one of our core mechanics is making the camera move around. But before we can actually do this we have to determine how our level is going to look, how big it is going to be. So we implemented the tiles into Unity to start looking at how we are going to approach building our level. And using the grid system in Unity we can make sure there is enough space between the tiles so each jump is possible.

We also started working on our camera and made sure the game is aware when a player is outside the camera view. We demonstrated this by resetting the players position.