Explore DevBlog #10: A Cue Queue

So I’m not going to do my usual “have done” and “need to do” list, even though the need-to-do things are all still there (plus I also need to add that I need to send some mood music to my composers), because we had thesis class today and I decided that what I really need to do before I go further is just all the polish stuff that will make the game in its current state. There were some things I’ve been letting slip by because I considered them polish and wanted to get the core done first. But it’s becoming apparent that there’s “polish” and then there’s “we can’t tell what’s going on in your game because there are no cues.” There’s, like, a million different little things that need to happen here, so I’m going to try and list as many of them as I can think of here and hope I’ll have time to get through at least most of them. (The title of this post is misleading, by the way; these are in no particular order.)

Defender Character

• Make the “scent trails” better / turn them into particle emitters
• Add real custom particles rather than temp particles for scent
• Make it so you leave scent
• Make faint scent trail leading up to food
• Make it so you move the same speed as the others of your kind
• Give the static pathers scent like the moving ones
• Make all static pathers descended from prefabs
• Make a noticeably different visual state for defensive mode (AI chars)
• Add sounds from other critters
• Make it so you see your own antennae in creature 1 (This still needs to be better)
• Add eating as a thing you have to do to finish that goal
• Make it so the predators chase you more often than others
• Fix camera clipping for character 1
• Do a proper texture-swap for the walls (Ended up swapping out barrier completely for terrain)
• Implement a controller
• Implement special move feeling on controller
• Add damage cues
• Add dying (self and NPCs)
• Get rid of or lower volume on sand movement sound
• Request “bumping-into” sound?
• Reduce speed of self and AI, and decrease area size
• Fix AIs getting stuck

Fast Character

(Note: This seems like fewer things only because I understand this character a bit less and he’s not as fleshed-out as character 1. I’m sure there’s just as many things that need to be done, but I just don’t know what they are yet.)

• Make it so you can’t jump over walls
• Make fleeing characters move faster
• Make fleeing characters not move all the way to target before leaving territory
• Add sound / music cues
• Change “predators” to look more like territorials, remove their sensory sphere renderer
• Make particles show up for water
• Tweak movement to feel better
• Add damage cues
• Add dying (self and NPCs)
• Make AIs leap out of water
• Add bubble trail on PC and NPCs to help indicate sameness
• Implement biting/defense of static pathers

General / Environment

• Make characters sway in the waves
• Replace fakey barriers with more environment-appropriate barriers that encourage crossing as char 2

So that’s it for now. I might edit this entry to add to my lists as I think of more things. (Perhaps I’ll even cross out the ones that I accomplish. That might feel nice.)