Thursday, August 14, 2008

Dashes and FPS

Today I went ahead and finished making the opening level playable. It is still lacking the scripting, but I have high hopes that these levels work well enough to go gold with little additional reconfiguring. Granted, I thought that last time, but now I really think that it's good. I still have a Milestone of trying to get the levels all plotted by the end of the month, and I think I'm a little behind, but still on track.
I also started playing around with an idea that I had. While watching the wife test the last set of levels, I noticed that she really liked the Dash move, and used it exclusively, since she never got a hang of the Flip. What occurred to me was that the recharging Dash Bar - that let's you know when you can Dash - is all the way up in the corner. Now I know what the Dash is, and I tend to spam the Flip move, since I prefer it. So when I think about needing to Dash, I just do since the bar is always filled and I don't think about it. However, for people that may prefer to Dash, or for later levels where you have to Flip and Aerial Dash on command with precision, I realized that they can't be looking up at the bar all the time, that's not what it is there for. Instead, I needed something on the character, some kind of particle or something, that would let the player know that it was good to go. So now, there is a little ring that swells quickly and a cute (subtle) noise that plays when the Bar is full again. Just so the player knows that everything is ducky with the Dash. A picture is included.

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