With a lot of prep work from the past two weeks being completed or worked on, we started working on designing and implementing some more core systems, as well as planning out the final boss fight. Art assets also continued to be created, with most of the player animations being complete and ready for implementation.
Following the character controls being completed last week, work was started on implementing the combat, which meant giving the player a hitbox and damage values, as well as creating a basic enemy to receive those attacks, and also perform moves of their own. The framework for all of these were created this week, with hitboxes being toggled on and off whenever an attack was triggered, and a basic enemy framework for easy state machine implementation in the future.
Since the player controls were completed last week, we also started work on implementing the map system for the game. We aim to have the entire navigation be seamless from one area to the next, while still running smoothly. Having a single gigantic map would not work for this purpose, as performance would most likely tank. We could have scene transitions between each room, but as we want the scale of the Tower to feel massive, we felt it more appropriate for everything to connect seamlessly. That's why we looked into Additive Scene Loading, a technique in Unity in which individual chunks of map are constructed within individual scenes, and then multiple scenes are loaded at the same time depending on which scene the player is in at that current moment.
You can learn more about the technique here: https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/SceneManagement.LoadSceneMode.Additive.html
Before this can be fully implemented, however, Nathan implemented basic scene switching between scenes, which will then be expanded into additive scene loading in the future. At the same time, he also got to work on integrating Cinemachine with the player so that we have a camera that follows their movements, and so that we can set boundaries that the camera cannot pass.
Level design was also worked on further, with most of the starting area's modules being laid out. Some further work needs to be done, but otherwise work on the next areas should begin relatively quickly.
Further animations for the player were created, bringing us closer to having the entire moveset finished and ready for implementation. The basic up, down, and side air attacks were created first, as well as the air spin and aerial fireball attacks. This made all attack animations completed and ready for implementation.
For remaining movement animations, the run cycle, wall slide, and hurt sprites were created.
The main new thing that was worked on this week was the final boss: The Ashen Vessel.
The initial sketch was made last week, but it felt too simplistic, derivative, and didn't really feel like a final boss.
However, we took a couple of the concepts and came up with a few more sketches, mainly based on the idea that the Ashen Vessel wielded a hammer. We thought the hammer made the boss stand out from the player more, who wielded a sword.
The third concept created was the one we liked the most, so a final concept was created, tweaking elements of that one:
With this concept, the boss' attacks were planned out with key poses drawn to make animating easier.
This week, the core components of our game really started coming together, though there is still more we have to design. The remaining three areas of the map have to be designed, concept art needs to be created for all the basic enemies, and we still need to implement our timer mechanic, but the hardest aspects we feel are starting to get finished, particularly movement, combat, and map loading. These are the three most important components for the game loop, so it was good that we started knocking them out early. Next week, the boss animations and UI will start to be made, while level design, map, and combat implementation will continue. Going into October, we hope to have something in a relatively playable state by the middle of the month, with the full gameplay loop finished by the end of the month. In general, we're very pleased with the progress on Tower of Ash so far, and we can't wait to see where it goes.
Until next time.
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