We all know that schedules are great and very helpful... if you stick to them! And they only really work when you have "perfect circumstances". These "perfect circumstances" are made out of various components that are either directly connected to the project or absolutely unrelated.
This week I found that motivation and productivity (who, as everyone knows, have a very tight relationship) just left me on my own. One of the biggest components that affected my productivity this academic year is that I don't own a PC so I need to go to labs (university facilities) however I perceive the working environment as not the best, which is mostly caused by bad inter-personal experiences with other peers in my previous academic year. So I struggled a lot this week in going to University to get my work done.
Application
So I started to work in-engine to get the application ready. I am using unreal 4 for this project since my programming knowledge is very limited for this kind of project and I feel more comfortable in creating blueprints in order for my game play to work.
As mentioned in earlier blogs there are three mini-games and three environmental puzzles. I will prioritize the environmental puzzles and create all of them first. There are two major factors for this decision. 1) I will need to block out the puzzles in order to create the board game art for the areas in which the environmental puzzles to take place in so that the players will understand the connection to them. Since I need to get the board game finished before the application it is important to have a good idea of what the location of environmental puzzles will be like. 2) the environmental puzzles are a bigger risk and task and are more important to complete for a Minimal viable product. I feel comfortable in having to cut one or two mini puzzles if necessary but there should be no cuts in environmental puzzles.
One of the main mechanics in the environmental puzzles is the character switching. The players will switch between their own character and their lost friend as the Dream world is where they are connected and the application is the dream world. I started with making the character switch work with the L2 and R2 button on a controller.
The blueprint for this mechanic checks what character is being used to avoid a player pressing the button of the current character and the camera moving around. After switching the character the blueprint also assigns the new current character
The next mechanic I implemented is that both characters will see specific items that the other doesn't. This will be a crucial part for some of the puzzles.
The blueprint for this mechanic will simply toggle the visibility of selected items in the scene when the player switches between the characters.
Storytime
I researched a little more into the symbolism/folk stories of different cultures about sleep paralysis. I found out that sleep paralysis is believed to be the wife of the Hares that will hunt people in their sleep and sit on their chests. It is believed that by putting a silverware or a knife under the pillow she will stay away. So these will be the items that the players will have to find and bring their friend.
In many other cultures it is believed that the Mare hunts people in their sleep and that it is a spirit of someone that hasn't found peace. The location of where the players are at will be the connection to why this happened to their friend as it will be the tomb of someone that has not found peace in their death.
So the plot will go something like this: 4 explorers are looking for a specific item in the tomb of someone. They are out in tropical natures and are getting close to the tomb. They decide to put up a fireplace and get some rest for the night. Everyone is woken up by a loud noise and one of the explorers got missing (sleepwalked and got trapped in sleep paralysis/the dream world by the restless spirit of the tomb). The friends now have to locate their friend and bring the two items in order to get the friend out of the dreamworld before the night end as the restless spirit will take over their friends body if they do not manage to save him/her.
Location
The location for this game will be a tropical outdoor environment with many ruins as I found enough free assets to build a nice looking environment in the application.
NEXT
I will focusing on blocking out the first environmental puzzle and making it work. I will also continue to work on the board game and if I find enough players do a further play test with new changes implemented. If I have enough time I will start some of the board game art and work on other aspects of the application such as the UI.
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