Link to most recent build (as of Feb. 17, 2013)
Assembling Assets – Lessons from the Text
The chapter that I read from the text this week was all about importing assets and building levels. As it turns out a lot of this information is much more applicable to the creation of a 3d environment, such as building and paining 3d terrain. Although this particular information is not useful for my current project I will certainly reference it again if and when I begin a 3d project. The information that was more useful from the text was about importing textures and using prefabs.
The chapter very nicely went over every option when importing a texture and this really helped me figure out which ones were important for 3d and which ones were important for my project. This also helps me import my textures and make sure they are consuming the smallest amount of space possible. For example “mip maps” load a smaller version of the texture when the camera is a certain distance away and the higher res texture when the camera gets close. I have no need for this because the camera is always the same distance away in a 2d game.
I also learned about different kinds of shaders and what they are used for. In particular I figured out how to use a lit shader vs. an unlit shader. I plan to use this later in my game when I start creating the cave levels. This way I can use light and darkness as part of the puzzles as well as just making the environment look nice.
The last important thing from the text was the encouragement to use prefabs. Although I already knew about prefabs and do use them sometimes this really taught me about their importance. Additionally I learned about making changes to the prefab vs. making changes to the instance of it in a scene and how it affects all of the other instances of the prefab. Now I know I need to apply the changes to the prefab if I want it to affect every instance of it which is very helpful and reduces frustration and time wasted.
Implementation Change log
This week I started working on the actual project again, starting from the prototype I had already created as a base. I began to implement several GUI changes that I had planned as well as improving a few bugs and annoyances that I have noticed while playing the game and watching others play the game. The following list of changes is what I have done so far.
Noticeable Changes
- Added a new level to the game
- Made the spell buttons bigger so that they are easier to hit
- Added “leniency” to the self-casting mechanic so that it’s easier to cast spells on the wizard.
- Added a pause button as well as a pause menu
- Removed the restart button
- Made the level buttons on the main menu larger
- Made it easier to hit the water with the ice spell by making the collider cover the entire tile
- Added a second collider with a smaller height to handle the collisions of the wizard, this prevents him from sinking to early and appearing to go through the ground
- Added a spell tracker that tells you which spell is currently selected.
- Lots of GUI changes
- Changed menu backgrounds and buttons to have a better and more consistent style
- Added some GUI elements of soon to be added features
- Lock icons to mark locked levels
- Journal buttons at the end of each row
- NOTE: these are not yet fully implemented. For now there is a lock on each level covering the number. This is very temporary and should be completed in the next week. Additionally the Journal buttons do nothing.
- Created a new sprite collection to hold GUI elements
- Moved all GUI sprites into this new sprite collection
- Adjusted all objects to use the new sprite collection
- Adjusted scale of sprites to match the old ones
Backstage Changes
- Created a new sprite collection to hold GUI elements
- Moved all GUI sprites into this new sprite collection
- Adjusted all objects to use the new sprite collection
- Adjusted scale of sprites to match the old ones
The Wandering Wizard 