Over the last couple week, I gained some speed in development of the game, since I don't have to do the art for the game alone. A friend of mine (Isti) joined the project, he's reviewing and fixing the graphics of The Architect.
We got the game in a feature complete state, but that doesn't mean, that it isn't full of bugs.
Since the development is done on OSX, but the game will be launched on Windows, OSX and Linux at the same time, I made quite an effort to make sure, that it runs on all three.
Also, I added full controller support in the last weeks - in-game and in menus too. It was quite challenging to integrate this into my own GUI framework (based on UnityGUI, but has additional features), since UnityGUI doesn't have controller support at all.
In the coming weeks we'll be working on fine tuning the game. First, we have the controller support; since most of it was added without actually testing throughly with a controller, the player character has un-wanted jumps, especially when teleporting. Don't get me wrong, I did it with simulating the controls with keyboard, because I can't carry the controller with me all the time, but I confirmed it working with a Xbox 360 controller.
Graphical tuning of the game is happening every day, and we're near the final state of the graphics. Small changes might occur.
Also, we got the final terminology of the game, which sounds awesome: Power-Ups are named Space Modifiers now, since it integrates very well with the game's theme. "Teleport" sounds so over-used, so we were thinking for weeks for a replacement: Magnetic Distortion Field.
In fact, we have two types of Magnetic Distortion Fields: a short range one, that you already seen, and s longer range now, which takes the player onto an intermediary level - completing it will take you back to the primary level you were playing. It's not obligatory to play these intermediary levels, but adds to the story and challenge.
The lower left one is the long range MDF, and the upper right is the short range one. There is not a big difference in the animation, but the colours and center size will make sure you won't mix it up.
Gameplay was touched a bit, at least on the level design side. Based on the feedback, I made the tutorial level a bit more forgiving, since I want the player to complete it easily.
Added difficulty setting, since the feedback was showing us, that some players would want to take the challenge to pick up all space modifiers, some were more interested on completing the level.
The biggest feature, that was completed and enabled in the latest build is the level designer. We'll have the full level designer included in the game on the game's launch. Custom level (and level series!) can be shared amongst players.
Last, but no least, I wanted to share with you a sneak peek of the second level - the first true level after the tutorial. This level is 85% complete.
Now that we're full of colours, I'm planning to do a colour blindness assessment on The Architect and fine-tune the colours and meshes that look similar in black&white.
I hope you enjoyed this article, any feedback/comment is more than welcome!
