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Giant Gough4 years ago(+1)

Jan. 31 - Player death

RESPAWNING AND PLAYER DEATH is really difficult. I can't really figure it out.  I finally have it that when my HP reaches 0 it respawns me but: 

  1. I go from 4 HP to 0 instantly due to each frame = 1hp damage. So by the time the enemy has turned around I am dead.
  2. I leave my dead bodies lying around. Check it out:

PLANNED FIXES TO THESE PROBLEMS:

To fix the first problem I will probably create a knockback effect and some i-frames to give the player some space and time to respond.
To fix the second issue...I don't know if it needs fixing. I kind of like seeing my failed corpses hanging out.


POLISH:
        - To make the whole transition a bit nicer I think I'll put a small delay on the respawn so it's not so jarring.  Maybe a 3 count or something.

        -I have an HP Bar, but it doesn't do anything yet. It will decrease each time the player gets hit. Unfortunately, I don't know how to make it decrease smoothly, so it'll decrease in chunks. But it will get the job done. Here's an image:


OTHER THOUGHTS:

Programming is hard. If someone has some cool resources for newbs, I'd appreciate it. Specifically Unity with C#. Right now I'm patching together information from 100 different tutorials and everyone has their games set up so differently, so I'm constantly trying to take what they're doing and make it applicable to my game. For example, someone has HP and respawn in the LevelManager/GameSession etc. Another will have it in the PlayerController. So figuring out the best way for my game to work can get confusing. I sort of feel good about getting this far, though.

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Sonderful4 years ago(+1)

I think the old bodies lying around is pretty cool, as long as they can’t break anything (block entrances, etc.)

I work as a software developer, but take my advice with a pinch of salt, because I’m not much of a game developer.

HP is a property of the player, and so it belongs with all the other player properties (position, scale, rotation, etc.).

Respawn is a bit more difficult. If you have it as a method on the player, then you can easily update the HP and position. You’d probably lose the dead bodies by doing that, unless you Instantiate() a new player object. That might cause weirdness when it comes to controls and things like that.

Just try to keep things in the place they logically belong. If the player has health points, then HP belongs to the player. If something else needs to know the HP (your health bar) then it will need to be able to reference the player to get it.

Coupling those GameObjects together seems to be a pretty common thing to do in Unity, so that’s probably fine for now, even though I’d usually say to avoid tightly coupling independent objects. Most typical solutions are going to be huge overkill for your game in the next week or so. :)

For tutorials, I’d say to find one that is producing something just like what you’re working on, and stick with that for examples/inspiration. Trying to follow more than one will probably just jumble things up, like you said. See if you can find one with the source code available for close inspection.

I think you’re doing great, and the best thing you can do is practice!

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Giant Gough4 years ago(+1)

I appreciate the advice!
I might do so refactoring after I get HP and player death working right. Then work on the final big part of the game which is combat. But super simple combat. I hit something with a stick, something dies.

The more I build the more I want to include, like losing coins on death, then a death run back to corpse etc. But anything above what I"ve already included is a bit out of reach. Especially with the time limit. I figure I'll finish this and then after this gamejam start a new  game with the info I've picked up.

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Sonderful4 years ago(+1)

Yeah, I’ve come to terms with the fact that if I want to make the game I have in my head, I’ll need to continue for a long time after this game jam. I’m just hoping to get the most basic implementation done now so I feel like I achieved something. :)

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