Documentation + User Guide

3 years ago by utas-llf

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The original concept for 00 Tree Climbing simulator was intended to be light-hearted and silly, a rather broad requirement that was not too well defined. However, this gave enough room for some artistic liberty with the designs, where clashes did not matter to much.

The movement was a key part of the original concept, with movement not being particularly fast, and jumping comprised of a charge time that launched at a fixed angle. Both were achieved, but with a fair bit of fiddling to get them to feel right. The angle of the jump had to accommodate the common positions of platforms, so mistakes were minimal and movement not too restricted. The charge of the jump was a bit more complicated in implementation, having to have a relatively quick charge time so as not to delay movement by much, a maximum force to work for most distances, and to convey the charge time visually to the player. This proved perfectly doable, with no changes from the concept.

A high level of difficulty was a core part of the original concept, with death resulting in a complete restart. However there needs to be a good amount of forgiving and fun mechanics to counter-balance this. Dodging was originally designed as a defense mechanism to protect against damage, and while this stayed true, it was extended to be a possible recovery option by being able to be done only once mid-air in either direction.

Testing Feedback

A decrease to the speed of the player, due to it being slightly to fast to easily control for finer movements. Enemy speed was also slightly reduced to accommodate this, however still left high enough to make the player frantic.

Features

Smooth infinite level generation – A total of 39 platform templates using 3 joining ‘shapes’, the level is generated infinitely, deleting those below once well out of view. There is an occasional slight hitch when new platforms are generated, most likely due to the generation of the navigation mesh, however it is minimal enough to be barely noticeable.

Basic AI – Done to a functional degree, with most normal behaviour implemented. This includes a ‘wandering’ and ‘chasing’ state, with transitions between the two. Navigation for both is done through a nav mesh that is generated at run time.

Enemy Jumping – This was a little monolithic due to the personal lack of knowledge around projectile motion, but the end implementation means that most of the time enemies will accurately jump from one platform to another with perfect accuracy.

Basic Inventory – Items can be picked up, dropped, and have ammo extracted into other equipped weapons.