New map
This is the third map you'll discover, if you count the title screen. Which I do.
Parkour animations
These work exactly the way they did in my last game. While climbing a ledge, the player physics body moves straight up, and then straight forward in a jerky fashion. While this is happening, I offset the model and camera so that the climbing animation stays rooted at the same position even though the player entity is moving. After the animation is done, I blend everything back together so the model and physics body are in the same position again. I believe this is similar to something in UE4 called "root motion".
Animated characters
I started out thinking this game would work the same as my last in terms of story. Branching dialogue choices in a simple text-based system, plus random notes scattered throughout the levels.
This week I finally realized a few things:
- I mainly play action games. This is an action game. Things happen in action games. Reading text is not a great fit.
- None of my favorite games have branching dialogue. You choose a story branch by performing an action, not selecting it from a menu.
- Games are most compelling when gameplay and story coexist and complement each other. That's difficult to do when they're totally separate. Pre-rendered cutscenes, or worse, animatics, foster a clear delineation between gameplay and story. The best games do everything in-engine, preferably without taking control away from the player. In an action game, heavy amounts of text lead to the same problem.
- I now have enough modeling and animation experience to pull off fully animated characters if I take a lot of artistic license and stick to a stylized look.