MONTH 2: GAME SYSTEM INTEGRATION
MILESTONE 2 - ACTION BLOCK #2
Having a framework of the direction I wanted to take my levels gave me a head start for the second action block that we all had to build. Before I got started on it, I had to address a couple of issues that were encountered through the first action block. The enemies would not chase the player after being shot, so the playtesters would stand and shoot them at a distance without no challenge. I rearranged some of the code and added a tag so that the enemies would aggro when shot at and would return to their patrol points when the hero was finally out of range. Another bug was that the floating text for the health would turn into small pixels above the enemies instead of disappearing, so I had to adjust the animation and decrease the destroy time after it was instantiated. Lastly, I balanced the WereBot and ZomBot damage due to them instantly killing the hero.
After these bugs were completed, the implementation of the second action block was able to begin. As a team, we were not completely satisfied with how the player aimed. The crosshair was locked on the direction the player was facing, so I revamped it by making a free aim which made it feel a lot more natural for a top-down shooter.
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Just like the first one, the player starts only with the base weapon. I quickly introduce the new range enemy that I created dubbed "SkeleBot". This enemy has a base weapon just like the player and will aggro but keep their distance and retreat back to their spot or a patrol point. I wanted to encourage the player to go for the enemies and try to wipe out the whole level, so I added enemy drops. We made the health packs drop from enemies instead of them being in random corners and the power-ups as well instead of them being in the treasure chests.
Just like in the first action block, I set up some enemy combinations to see how the player would fair against them along with some traps in between them to add to the challenge. However, I wanted to mix up layout a little bit. I set up two routes to give the player a choice if to go left which had a horde of ZomBots/SkeleBots or right which had some WereBots/SkeleBots. Both paths had the same loot boxes and rewards, just had to fight different enemies to get to them. I made sure that they both presented the same challenge so that the player wouldn't choose one over the other base on difficulty.
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This milestone allowed me to iterate on the new enemies and experiment with the level layout and mechanics in order to create a fun and engaging gameplay for the player. As we wrapped up this month, our team played though each other action blocks and made suggestions on certain areas of the levels that we could improve on for the next stage of development.
KEY THINGS I WORKED ON THIS MILESTONE:
Created a new Enemy
Scripted AI functionality so when Player gets close enough, the new enemy retreats
Scripted AI functionality so that the enemy aggros when shot at
Balanced enemy damage
Bug fixes on the UI
Designed Level layout and blocked out the level
Edit all SFXs and music to fit the items they were tied to
Design atmospheric effects such as fog, lighting, debris, etc.