Archive:
It’s my birthday, and as is right and proper, I did zero work. I did drink some nice whiskey, though.
Yesterday, while driving back from my Mum’s – we share a birthday and I am, literally, the gift that keeps on giving – I decided to make a start on one of the other zones. Moonbase has been slow-going because of the underlying systems work, so it’d be nice to have a quick squirt on something new and shiny, before Xmas.
A lot of people have been talking about LLMs and ChatGPT, lately. I’ve never really played with AI much – I hate the look of those picture generators, for a start – but I did play around with ChatGPT before I started on this project and I asked what it would do with a sequel to Lumo. It suggested setting one of the zones in Miner Willy’s Mansion, which tickled me. It’s not a bad idea; each of the room names could be spun into something entirely different, so I decided to run with it. Today, I sketched out some of the ideas that have been bubbling away.
Created a new map, set up the `GameMode`, and spent a good few hours sorting out the lighting. I’ve gone for a moonlit night, which admittedly, doesn’t make any sense for a location primarily set indoors, but does, I think, set the sort of tone that I’m after.
And, because it made me laugh, I thought the first room could be a nod to Super Castlevania IV, with the player in front of an arch, looking at the castle ahead. Except the castle’s actually a rendition of the old Palace Software logo. You know, the people who made Cauldron and Barbarian.
The Castlevania entrance is done! You can even move on to the next room.
I agree, this is quite dark. I did light it with some torches by the arch, but it softened the mood too much. Don’t worry, it won’t ship like this. If there’s one thing I’ve learned: I start off with everything as dark-and-moody as I can get it, then slowly edge it up to something bright and saturated before I ship.
Might need to remove the fog planes on the Switch, I imagine the overdraw will spank it :/
The best bit: I discovered the Wind Source, in UE. The player’s cape blows around in the wind! :D
Upgraded to UE 5.3.1 and the new Switch dev release. That was an exciting afternoon.
Next room; “Security Guard”. I think this was the room in jet Set Willy that had the pointy hat wearing dudes, that bounced up and down. Whatever, I’m not going to look at JSW because there’s already a super obvious thing to do here: a version of the colour coded copy protection! :D
I’ll pop up the code sheet, do an animation of a target moving around, highlight a colour, then the player will need to move a similarly coloured push-block into a specific spot. After which, the door will open.
I did a version of the code-sheet in Affinity Designer – with slightly changed colours so it’s a little more obvious – and laid out the room. Mental Note: I’ll never hear the end of this from my colour challenged chums. (Future Gareth: yup, every single time a screenshot of this appeared, someone jumped on it…)
Friends:
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