Week 9 - Level Blocking

Week – 9: Level Blocking

Where the game sits:

The game has advanced beyond placeholders to now having player sprites and a tile map implemented in the game. Players can now traverse a rough design of what the first level will look like, without the story-based components and instructional components which have yet to be implemented.

What’s new:

This new update adds several components to Escape from GeoLabs. Firstly, the players sprites and animations have been finished and implemented in the game. These animations include idle, jumping, falling, shooting, and running. These sprites and animations are based on the character designed by Pi[1], which have been altered to give the player the components needed to fit the story of the game.

As well as this, level blocking for the first 5 levels has been created. Given that there are several key components that will have to be used in all scenes, such as the camera functionality, only the first level of these designs has been implemented in the game, with the images of the layout of each level pictured below. I have implemented a laboratory tile map created by ExceptRea[2] for this game.

Upon feedback from last week, I have implemented a cooldown of the dashing ability, which exists for 1 second after use. I have also altered the dash to travel the same distance but do it over a longer period of time.

Visualization:

Completed player:

running animation:

new dash:

Level designs: 

level 1

levels 2 -5 (red, pink and green indicate coloured enemies, blue indicates end goal)

Testing and feedback:

Testing of this game at this stage revolved around the new player and the style of the level design. Players have suggested that the game would benefit from having windows in the background that shows what is happening in other areas of the laboratory. This is something that I will consider adding, as it would increase the immersion that the player would feel in the game.

Future updates:

work on the enemy design is currently underway, as well as the scripting for their behavior. Player shooting will also be added shortly. The camera component will also be further developed in the future.

[1] Pi (2022). Platformer Template. https://pifn.itch.io/platformer-templates

[2] ExceptRea (2023). Laboratory Tileset Revamped LITE https://exceptrea.itch.io/laboratory-tileset-revamped-lite