Programming

Hi all we back with another week of programming. A lot of feedback has been applied this week and we finally have a fully functional game loop. The death mechanic also got some love this week.

Death mechanic

The death mechanic now has a temporary dev aim cursor and shoots diapers faster. The explosion range has also been increased. In previous versions the height was set by the game by using ray casts. This gave some very unwanted behaviour sometimes because the track goes over itself. This feature has been removed and the player now can control his height by himself. (Controls still need to be updated).

Game loop

Finally, the game loop is completed! When all players die, they get thrown to a story telling screen that tells them they are noob in the game. But when one player reaches the finish then the game will end if all the other players are also done playing. When it does end, they get thrown into a stats screen. This one is coming in the polishing week.

Difficulty

The game becomes easier and easier every round. This is done by the randomization of the hazards. It has 3 rarities: common, rare and legendary with each its difficulties and momentum breaking mechanics.

Feedback

The sprint mechanic wasn’t clear for people. So, we now renamed it to the destruction mechanic. It still does the same thing but now visualizes a metal ball instead of the plastic one.

With the new destruction mechanic, we now use a different particle effect to indicate sprinting and braking has received the old sprinting particle effect.

The camera was interfering with some hazards and players, and this has also been fixed. I also removed it from the wheel but after this week’s feedback I might add it back.

The position UI is now removed, and logic is resets when a player dies. So, a death player will always be last.

Art

Bomb-Diaper

This week, our talented art department has made significant strides in the development of the Death Mechanics. We've introduced a unique feature that allows players to restart the entire race upon death. How? By engaging in thrilling combat and eliminating their opponents.

To bring this intense experience to life, we've implemented a captivating gameplay element. Players now have the opportunity to eliminate their rivals by tactically deploying explosive diapers. Yes, you heard it right! Imagine the adrenaline rush as players strategically drop diaper bombs filled with dynamite sticks onto their opponents, creating explosive chaos.

Decoration

Our team has also been working hard at adding new decorative elements to the track. One notable addition is a charming candy jar filled with an assortment of colorful candies. Additionally, we've introduced a delightful feature where tiny flags will be procedurally placed throughout the entire track. These flags utilize different UV sets, ensuring that each flag will have its own unique color.

Surroundings

The surroundinngs have been reweorked and regenerated . They are now actual buildings and fit a lot better around the track than the previous placeholders. Some manual adjustments have been done post generation to make sure nothing clipped and useless meshes have been removed for optimisation purposes.

VFX

Demolish mode

This was my initial attempt at creating a particle within Unity, so I encountered numerous challenges along the way. However, after persevering, we eventually achieved success. I began by developing a shader that would be useful for creating a ribbon or trail effect in the future. 

I invested a significant amount of time into crafting the ribbon/trail effect, but unfortunately, it didn't achieve the desired appearance. Whenever the ball utilized its ability, the trail consistently appeared distorted. It either failed to manifest altogether, or it extended from the very beginning to the ball's current position. Eventually, I decided to abandon the trail effect and instead applied my shader to different planes, which yielded the desired outcome. Additionally, I introduced a particle effect that emitted sparks.

When dropping a bomb a trail of smoke would follow it and it would explode upon contact. Since the rocket has been replaced by a dynamite diaper, the trail represents poop with some rests in the explosion.

Materials

Additionally, a new material was developed with the intention of resembling metal. This material is employed when the player activates the demolish mode, providing visual feedback that their ball has become immensely powerful and capable of crushing others.

Sound

The second sprint comes to an end, and I managed to get the volume calculations to work as they should finally! If you haven’t guessed, it’s audio talk time! I’m kind of sad that most of this weeks’ time has been spent getting this volume thing to work as it should. But I’m proud that the problem is finally solved and that following implementations that need this functionality won’t have any problems! Other than that, I’ve been able to make the level music that’s in the game work in a loop, it now starts of the song with the normal intro of the song and then switches over to a looping version of the song! Making music loop-able is both fun and exhausting since it’s satisfying when you get it to loop properly but also annoying when you must play through the same song over and over to make sure the loop is as seamless as possible. That’s all I have to share for now, see you next week!