Summary 

Throughout team Smile's journey in the development of  Auto-Shipping Solutions, I've been undergoing the role of lead programmer. In a series of steps I've been able to consistently work on the development of the game and made multiple features for it. This includes development on the basic menu structure, scene transitions, concurrent data between scenes, level layout and logic, character movement, controls, box logic, and my current task of making the repair minigame functional. This devlog will go over the key aspects I've been working on, and how they tie in to the game as a whole.

Movement

A key aspect of the game is having the characters arms move in a fashion that makes it feel immersive, doesn't make it too easy, and requires the player to think about their actions. With this in mind I made the characters arms (the circle) follow the players mouse and trail-behind to simulate wonky robot arms. This is obviously nowhere near a perfect state, but I believe it gets the idea across for now.

Boxes

The movement mechanic goes hand-in-hand with the boxes. The idea behind it is that the player will be taking boxes from either conveyor belt and putting it on the belt that matches the box. This section has two main components, those being the box itself and the belt. The box needs to be able to have the player grab it, and have it's own individual physics. The physics should also keep momentum when dropped by the player. The conveyor belt should only be adding force when the player is not holding it, and it's on top of it. The force should only go in the direction the belt is facing. 

Repair Minigame

The minigame is an event that triggers when the player runs out of either of their two resources (fuel & stress). When either or both reach 0, the minigame pops up and the player needs to do the corresponding action. If the player gets too stressed, they need to replace broken parts and top up their fuel, and if the player just runs out of fuel they need to top up their fuel. In its current state the minigame is pretty buggy, but is still functional. This is something I'm already working on fixing though.