Studio3 week6 WIP

New features:

• Sound design is incorporated (sound designer: Benjamin Willis)
• The “Stun and Steal” mechanic is introduced
  • Spent a few days on figuring out the reason of why both players got stunned when one stepped on the other
  • As both players manipulate the “OnTriggerEnter2D” to detect the action of being stepped, which has not specificity
    • Worked well with one set of script on one of the players
    • The stunning function on both players was triggered if the script is put on both players
  • Removed the collider as a trigger, and detect which player is on top when a collision occurs
    • If the GameObject on top is not the other player, nothing happens
    • If another player is on top, the player below get stunned
  • Fixed the problem of minus score
  • Fixed the problem of “infinite” score deducted from one touch

Attempt:

• Compared two logical paths to achieve the “stun and steal” mechanics
  • When a collision between P1 & P2 occurs, cast a ray on top of their heads
    • The player detected on the other player’s head will be awarded 3 scores
    • The other player will get stunned
    • More accurate than the player won’t get stunned when they are not stepped by another player
    • but less sensitive because the other player needs to be hit by the raycast which is just a narrow line
    • I’ve decided to go with this approach

• When collision occur, compare the y position of the two game objects
  • The player with higher y position will be awarded 3 scores
  • The other player will get stunned
  • More sensitive that it’s easier to be triggered
  • but not accurate that sometimes the player is stunned even when he’s just colliding with the other player but not being stepped
  • May be some problem with the logic(?)

Playtesting & problems:

• When one player got stunned, another player can keep jumping on that player to steal his scores
• When the level is reloaded by pressing spacebar, the detection of P2 stepping on P1 is not working
• Playtesters reflected that the sound works quite well in the game
• The playtime is too long and there are not many challenges in the level
• The level looks too tight at this moment

Related work and inspirations:
Because Jeremy has pointed out that my level design is too tight, and it’s true that sometimes when the characters jump, they get blocked by the platform above their heads. I tried to get some inspiration from some multiplayer platformer games with simple level design.

Spelunky <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAIO7UNM1a8>

• The level design is simple, but the “landscape”/ route for players’ movement keeps changing throughout the gameplay
• Some platforms may be destroyed
• Some rope may drop from the top to create new paths for the players to move
• The interactions between players are caused by different weapons in the level

Steg and Rex <https://youtu.be/tR1NyN1eiBY>; <https://jmakegames.itch.io/steg-and-rex>

• The level design is simple, only two to three layers
• Players can get back to the top of the level by dropping off from the bottom of the level
• Player interaction: when one player dash through the other player, the other player got stunned

PushGo <https://goblinacademy.itch.io/pushgo>

• There are only two layers of platforms and four platforms in the level
• Players can get back to the top of the level by dropping off from the bottom of the level
• The interactions between players are caused by different weapons in the level

Reflection & suggestions

• May change the level setting every 30s throughout the playtime
  • Can also make the platform not that tight for each setup
  • The platforms were designed like this for the higher difficulty in the beginning
  • But the change in level set up throughout the playtime can serve the same purpose
  • Fewer platforms can also increase the chances of bringing the two players closer and thus may increase interactions between the players
• May try to introduce some weapons into the level throughout the playtime to create more conflict between the players
• Or may try to add slightly different traps in each level setting to create more challenges to the players