BETA Approaching

This is the last week before BETA.

So, here we are trying to finish up as much as possible before the game is to be put forth for play testing this Monday and later the big BETA presentation next Friday. During this kind of hectic time you sometimes find yourself in need of the answers to the questions you probably should have asked about a week ago when you had two weeks to think it over.

One of these questions is as follows: What does a ventilation grate or “entrance” look like in a top down perspective?

This question arose because our character is to be able to move around in the building using the ventilation system, a bit of a cliché in the whole building infiltration plot.

It is a grate of metal attached to a ventilation duct, it is made to not stick out or be in the way and it would probably look like a line of gray pixels with an outline when seen from above. Or maybe two lines.

So, how do you show that there is an accessible vent nearby?

Out first thought was something like “dunno, add a flashing arrow or something”. Not my finest moment. Not only is it not very imaginative but it also goes against the aesthetics of the rest of the game since we still try to keep the game-world in diegesis* and a blinking arrow is neither subtle nor very pretty.

As a bit of a more subtle signifier we have discussed a blue transparent outline or glow similar to the one we have around the evidence. Another idea was to make an indicator for the context sensitive “use button”. Displaying when it can be used and what it can be used for with a little picture.

Then we also have the problem of opening the vents.

How do you open them? What should it look like?

The first thought that struck most of the team on the subject of vent opening was the very memorable rip-it-off-its-hinges technique displayed in the Batman Arkham game series. However that did not seem to fit the feeling either. We only discussed the matter a little and we decided to test one where the grate swings upwards as if hinged on the topmost part of the frame an dthe player would then move in under the grate. I was tasked to do a test animation to see how it worked out.

This is what I made and this is probably(almost certainly) not the final stage of the animation, it might even be scrapped altogether.

So, my first idea was to use the projection technique we learned from Steven in the 2d course earlier this semester, however I realized that the picture was far to pixely for it to really shine through and since I did not want to much of a perspective on the thing you almost get the feeling that it is something being pulled out rather that an object on a pivot.

There are a few other very hard things about it too, like how do I make it clear throughout the whole animation that it is a grate and not a solid hatch that magically turns into a grate on the last frame.

Also, how long time is the opening of the grate to take? Should one maybe cut the two frames to make it faster? And how would that change the gameplay, would it change the vents form a place to flee the guards to a tool used to circumvent them entirely if opening them took too long? Questions to be answered, probably by testing.

That’s it for today have a nice weekend people!

Or a nice Wednesday I guess if you are the poor sod commenting on me this week

//Max  Nordlund