Archive:
Decided to cogitate on Antesher and do something else for a bit. The Watch Tower, in Willy’s Mansion, always sounded like a good excuse to have another play at a Nebulus-style room. The Back Stairs were inside a tube – something I always wanted to do in the first game – the Watch Tower will be outside. And this time I’ve got a few more toys to play with, so it’s not going to be a straight rush to the top. Hopefully, I can make it a bit more exploration focused.
I’ve managed to get the controls and camera working - a slight repurpose of the code I wrote for The Back Stairs – and made a start on some platforms that move as you turn a screw with the right stick.
Finished the “screw” platforms; one that rotates around the tube, and one that moves up and down. They’re both one-way, so you can’t manually unwind them, but I think that’ll be fine.
The afternoon was spent double-checking that the build was blocker free (and compiling cleanly) so they could cost up the work. We’re on the vinegar strokes now.
Didn’t have a lot of time today, but started playing around with the new screw actors, and measuring jump distances and timings around the tube. I think I’ve got a reasonable idea about what to do with it.
This is working out quite nicely. I’ve managed to repurpose the rats, the bats, got the new screw platforms in, and made a couple of routes around the tube. Since this is, pretty much, the last room in the level, I’ve made all the paint pick-ups invisible unless you’ve got the wand on. Bit more of a challenge if you’re interested, if you’re not, you can just wander to the top and bounce.
I think I’m going to add an indicator to each room. Something that flashes, or dings, or pops-up in the UI so you know there’s no more paint to collect. The game’s purposefully soft, you have infinite lives, the platforming’s way easier (Double Jump!), and I’ve tried to keep a pretty chill vibe to the whole thing, but I’m starting to think that it’d be a dick-move to make people hunt for the ONE thing that they’ve missed. Reminds me of the Agility Orbs from Crackdown, except I don’t have an audio loop to give people a clue that something’s nearby. (I thought about adding one, but it wouldn’t work with the music, and tbh, given the number of collectables in the game, it’d end up being a constant background drone…)
I’ll come back to that.
Finished the layout of the Watch Tower, and added a flipper platform that flips when you land on it. I used these toward the end of the first game, as well, but this time I was able to tweak the rotation timings with a curve, so the results are a lot nicer. I didn’t have time to finish it, as we needed to go to a wake :(
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