Hey again!

Here we go, our first week of production!
This week was all about finishing the design of our characters, and building up our first level!

So let's talk about that, shall we?

The Code

Players

Most of the code we used for our characters from the prototype will not differ all that much from what we do now. 

The players have been programmed but require some tweaking. The movement system needed a full rework, The main thing that needs to be properly updated now are the player specialities; each player has their own special ability; Player 1 can dash and player 2 can anchor themselves. These still needs some small fixes!

Level Elements

Level elements like the door, button, weighted button, and moving platform work properly at first glance they still need a proper testing, but once that's done they're totally fixed, they communicate nicely with each other trough a base class that ties all the intractable objects together and allows each one of them to work independent or with a button connected to it.

As you can see here, we have our moving platform that works once the heavy player jumps on it! It doesn't work if the smaller character tries this, as they aren't heavy enough.

We also noticed that our characters are currently facing the wrong way! D:
Luckily these are just the sketches, so by next week this will be fixed.

The Art

Our Characters

We finally have the designs for our characters ready! As we mentioned previous week, we didn't want to completely change their design. Only make them visually way more distinct from one another!

For both characters,  Lisa made some fun sketches where we then picked what we all liked most.
Player 2's design took us a tiny bit longer since we wanted the character to have rope but weren't sure where we'd put it, keeping the animation process in mind.

Our first character is a bit older but he's quite spry! He's got such a nice moustache too :O

And of course, we cannot forget our second character!

This guy is clearly a bit younger and has quite the built body, perfect for anchoring into walls to help the other character!
We decided he'd need rope in his design, but a pickaxe or hook was also needed! (We may or may not have accidentally made a diamond pickaxe, oops.)

With their designs done, we can now fully focus on their animations! We were quite happy with our first drafts for the idle animations, so they were redrawn with their  fresh new look!

Now of course, these are the sketches, so it's normal that they're a bit messy still. They will be getting their full line-art by next week.
We plan on adding at least 1 fully finished new animation each week until we have them all done!

Our Environments

Maaike took her time to design the background of the first level. The first level is in a cave, which gets the color blue. The colors will change during the levels to pink and then orange. We made an neutral and universal background so we don't have to worry about the placement of the platforms. The style is inspired by the game Gris: the subtle gradient in the background and the paint effects. 

We also made some foreground elements. These will make clearer in which environment we are. For the caves these will be gems, rocks,... and the more we go up the more green and vegetation there will be. 

Interactables

The first designs were made for the buttons and door. This makes it easier to blockout a level as we know the size and shape of the objects. Our devs can then already start implementing them in the gameplay. 

Platforms

For the platforms and walls we decided to work with Unity's 2D tile map extras package. This makes it easy and fast to try out ideas and change old levels without having to do a lot of busy work.

With the system in place Maksym made some place holder tiles. This way we can already start making levels that are ready to be used in the final game.

Next week

By next week, we want our idle animations completely finished and perhaps our running animations too.
All the platform and wall art should be finalized and put to use in our levels.

All this together means that our game is starting to look more and more how we envision it, and that is exciting!

See ya next week!