I liked this lecture as it really helped me come to terms with when I should look at refactoring. As Ben said, it’s easy to look at all the classes that aren’t particularly structured right now and feel a little antsy about starting on refactoring.
Building this list really helped me come to terms with what I should be working on. I really enjoy both the design & coding portions of this course, but I neglect working on the level or designs for working on new features, slap wrists. I have got the player movement very close to how I want it, and have posted a video below that I also posted on the Official Discord channel. With that big hurdle out of the way, I feel I can focus on other aspects to get it to a prototype demo.
Rising Complexity & Refactoring
Over the next few weeks, I have a number of things I am looking to accomplish. The list below, in no particular order:
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Level
- Need to flesh out the environment. I’m at the point now where the character is moving appropriately, so I can get a better feel for spaces, distances, and can prevent cluttering. I’d also like to add some effects like fog and lighting, but might be a little too early.
- Need to place enemies. I’ve been using a couple placeholder enemies up until now while I worked on the features of attacking and movement. Now it’s time to place enemies appropriately and in varying collections.
- Complete level flow. I know how I want the level to flow, but haven’t been working on this because my movement was so off. Now it’s close to what I want, I can work on finalising level flow.
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Player
- Attack Animation. It’s hard for me to pass this demo out in the current form without an attack animation. I have some other assets that I can possibly reuse the animation from; failing that, I will figure out how to make one.
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UI
- Update Player health bar. Right now, it’s using the one Ben provided. I have an armour mechanic in my game, that is similar to a health shield, and I would like the UI to reflect it. It’s currently coded and working, so it’s just a visual change.
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Enemies
- Collision. There’s an issue with collision throwing the player up in the air. I’m hoping it’s a simple fix. Along the same lines, I would like to make sure the collision boxes are tight - right now, they’re placed haphazerdly; close, but not tight. I want to clean this up to improve attack range functionality.
- Increase enemy library. Currently I have 3 enemies which are fully built with the right animators and stats. I want to increase this to 5 so that I have a big enough slection. I can then also use scaling to make boss creatures.
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Design
- Continue Mindmap. While I’ve been keeping my mindmap up to date, there are certain portions I’ve put aside for it. I want to get this finalised in the next few weeks to ensure that I have a good track I’m heading down.
- Improve Obligation feature. I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I want to make sure that the obligation feature at least has some positive and negative effects on the player. I’m building around an idea at the moment, but I want it to be a little more conrete.
- Define Remarkability. I’ve not quite nailed this down yet. My design is a mishmash of other games, and I want to make this something special - not just an amalgamation. This goes into the mindmap but it’s a big piece, so it’s got its own section.
Last Modified: 2nd October, 2018
Player Movement video: