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[Fenrir]

The linking part looks great! Just a question, are you planning gamepad controls or will it be too complex?

[karlozalb]

Wow this looks amazing, and the dynamic creation of ropes...

[Paul]

The linking part looks great! Just a question, are you planning gamepad controls or will it be too complex?

Thanks! Yeah I'm definitely aiming for gamepad control. So far it's been pretty straightforward, I haven't run into any problems. Throw heights and angles will probably have to be changed a bit though

Wow this looks amazing, and the dynamic creation of ropes...

Hah thanks, I'll do a post about how they work soon. They weren't too difficult to implement but adjusting them for high speeds did have some problems

[quan]

posting to follow this looks cool

[TonyManfredonia]

The fluidity of the animation is really enticing.  I love it so far!

[Paul]

Thanks for the comments!

I've written a small bit about the rope system before but thought I'd expand on it a bit since I couldn't find many tutorials for these line of sight type ropes

How the Rope System Currently Works

The rope is initially created from two parts, the rope hook and the grappling gun which fires the rope. The player fires the hook at the wall and a line renderer is used to draw a line between the two points.

The hook then sends a raycast/linecast back to the gun to create a line of sight. As long as this line of sight isn't broken this is all there is to it! The player can move around or hold the "Grab" button if they want to swing from the rope as they have a centre point they can now swing around



Edit: Modified this post to a newer method I've since implemented.

When obstacles get in the way things get trickier.

While moving, the next position of the rope is predicted using its current acceleration and simple pendulum formula (This was updated to add some springiness to the ropes too so it doesn't feel too stiff). Using this next predicted position we can assess if the line of sight between the player and grapple is about to be broken (i.e. if the rope needs to bend around a corner). The line cast identifies what kind of object it is and a short method is run to gets the objects corner points. For example in my case it's usually square tiles, so if a tile comes between the two grapple points it identifies the tile and finds the position of each of its 4 corners. It identifies the closest corner as the one that broke its line of sight and adds a grapple point to this corner



I also tested an optional method for assessing potential corner points to attach to. When the tile spawns or when the nearby environment is deformed, each of the tiles does a test and identifies which corners can be grappled to and which can't. So if a tile has a tile above it and below it then it can't be attached to. So the rope actually has to find the closest point which it is allowed to grapple to. The image below shows this more accurately, the rope can only attach to the yellow corners. This lowers the amount of calculations needed for the rope, as it now only needs to assess corners with "rope points" on them.



The rope now consists of three points; the hook, the grapple point and the grapple gun. A linecast line of sight is set between each point; the hook and the grapple point and the grapple point and the grappling gun.

If any of these line of sights are broken the process is repeated and another grapple point can be added. The players center point to swing from is the closest grapple point to him

The final part was to make the rope release from a corner when it needed to. This was achieved by simply looping through each of the grapple points on the rope and assessing if any line of sights had been regained. So in the example above, if the hook and the grapple gun regained their line of sight then the additional grapple point would be removed.

Hopefully this is of help to someone, and let me know if you want me to explain anything a bit better. There's probably better techniques for using this type of system, but it worked well for what I'm doing. If anyone has any suggestions to improve on my current one then let me know!

[Paul]

Haven't posted anything here in a while, I've been redoing old/bad code to get everything running more smoothly, adding easier to use menus and trying to prepare a playable version

I've also been working on new obstacles for the player, including circular blades to make getting up walls more difficult and a drone type enemy that walks on all surfaces (with terrible temporary art)

Using a sticky EMP to disable the circular blade:


A very early wall walker type enemy, just testing the ability:


New Menus:

[Paul]

Update #11 Some Art

I've been working on some character art and environments over the last few weeks. They were all made in Blender and imported into unity to add lighting. I started using Blender so the models went through a fair few iterations over the since December. I think the colours will still probably change, it's all a bit grey at the minute. Let me know what you think, or if there's an area I could improve I'm open to suggestions! I picked 3D over 2D mainly because of lighting and shadows, but it also allows for easier iteration on animations (in my opinion anyway)

[Paul]

More screenshots. Trying to get the contrast between characters and background working

[RyanHuggins]

Hey! I really, really like this!

I love how smooth it all looks and I'm a big fan of stealth platformer games!

I was wondering though (since I've sort of rolled by own Unity Forces/Collisions wrapper for my own projects) are you using Unity physics2D for your collisions (non-triggers)? And if you're not, I was wondering how you're handing your collisions!

[arrebeat]

Loving the little flying drone; it reminds me of something from Toriyama! And gotta love a bearded main character! Is that design close to the final? Keep up the good work!

[Octopus Tophat]

Dude, this game looks awesome! Following 

[wizardfu]

Looking really interesting to play! Also looks like a lot of fun to make.

[Paul]

Hey! I really, really like this!

I love how smooth it all looks and I'm a big fan of stealth platformer games!

I was wondering though (since I've sort of rolled by own Unity Forces/Collisions wrapper for my own projects) are you using Unity physics2D for your collisions (non-triggers)? And if you're not, I was wondering how you're handing your collisions!

Hey, thanks for the comments! I'm actually using a bit of both at the minute. I'm using Unitys 2D physics for object collisions such as throwable items and projectiles but for the character iteself I'm using raycasts and transform.move type formulas. I played around with a physics controller at the beginning but couldn't get it to feel like I wanted, so opted for this approach. Prime31's Character Controller was one of my main reference points when creating it if you want to test out theirs

Dude, this game looks awesome! Following 

Looking really interesting to play! Also looks like a lot of fun to make.

Loving the little flying drone; it reminds me of something from Toriyama! And gotta love a bearded main character! Is that design close to the final? Keep up the good work!

Thanks for all the comments! I'm slowly getting there with the design. The backgrounds definitely need more work, so I'm going to play around with adding more detail and trying different combinations of colours and saturation to see what works while still keeping everything very clear to the player. I'd also like some animations in the background to make the world feel a bit more alive

[mirrorfish]

This really looks cool dude, great mechanics! Love the rope thing.

[Paul]

This really looks cool dude, great mechanics! Love the rope thing.

Thanks, yeah the rope turned out to be pretty fun and good for saving yourself from long, insta-kill falls!

Update #11.5 Character Shaders and Light and Dark

Playing around with character colours, shaders and lighting. As it's a stealth game, lighting will play a role in the gameplay so I need to have it clear when you are fully lit and when in darkness. I don't know much about shaders, so it's been a bit of an long process. I've been experimenting a lot with different light intensities, ranges and rim lighting to try and find the best combination of light and dark models but haven't yet found something that works well

Getting to work on the animations soon to see how it looks when moving about the screen and under lighting

[Paul]

A new background colour scheme.Still needs some adjustments, but I think the look is coming together a bit more now

[Mixer]

I watch a youtube channel called extra credits (it's great) and think you should watch this. It sounds like your doing things well, you might have even seen it, but I wanted to link this stealth theory episode, as it seems like it might apply to your game.





Game looks good!

Edit: An important point to take away is allowing the player to solve a problem various ways. Don't force them into going a specific way. I have played games like this and it quickly feels like you aren't in control of anything really.

[Paul]

I watch a youtube channel called extra credits (it's great) and think you should watch this. It sounds like your doing things well, you might have even seen it, but I wanted to link this stealth theory episode, as it seems like it might apply to your game.





Game looks good!

Edit: An important point to take away is allowing the player to solve a problem various ways. Don't force them into going a specific way. I have played games like this and it quickly feels like you aren't in control of anything really.

Thanks! Yeah I've watched that video a few times now, it makes some good points. I've been aiming to make this game as open as possible to allow the player to get through any given area multiple different ways. That was the main reason behind making the customisable items, so the player can create a unique gadget from what they're carrying in order to get past an area. Combine this with destructible walls and other environmental features, and the possibilities stack up fast

I like games where you have limitations such as a lack of ammo or items, so have to try and use them in clever ways. I suppose that's the main idea behind this game; putting the player in a situation where they have to come up with a unique solution to a problem in order to progress. Since the levels are procedurally generated and so are the item drops, the chances of being in the same situation twice will be slim. So when a player does find a unique solution, they feel more of a sense of accomplishment than if it was already a premade puzzle or solution

[oldblood]

Just discovered this devlog somehow. Awesome read.