MyRobot Development Part 27 (Patreon)

Video shows the summary, text shows the technical.

This week:

• Better Controls

• Helpful Hints

• Larva Hive Features

• Deadly Water

Better Controls

 This was something that I really wanted to redo. The controls were previously a pain in the ass to use. The gameplay really slowed down because of this and it didn't feel right to play with the grapple hook or laser arm. So I sat down and thought about ways to improve the controls.

I wanted faster paced gameplay. I wanted quicker reactions to the environment. Not as fast as a FPS but more like a simple casual RPG. So I swapped in 1 click/button actions and borrowed from old Viva's "F" follow mechanic. Things feel much better now.

Helpful Hints

 It's challenging to make a game where you have 'firing tools' that require precision but they aren't fired from your perspective, rather from somebody else (the robot). Therefore the player needs to know what the robot sees to properly aim. Line of sight is the biggest hurdle so I made sure that a hint is displayed if the robot cannot see where you want it to fire at.

Larva Hive Features

 When you heat up a larva hive, it will disable spawning of larva for about 8 seconds, giving you some time to pass through or collect something. The time is still being tweaked.

Deadly Water

 First, the water. I built a simple ripple dynamics compute shader to simulate water ripples. A maximum of 16 capsule colliders can wade and splash the water.

Since water now disables your robot, it's a good way for me to block the robot from certain regions of the map. I could also build on top platform mechanics to require the robot to grapple across.

I am gunning for a release early August and I also updated the road map post on the front of the patreon. August will tone down things and add slice of life features so that you can get to know your robot better.

Stay tuned!