Hopefully before the end of summer, but no promises. I wont exchange quality to meet a date with this, but I will stop myself from endlessly added features, which is what I'd do if I had no idea of when to finish.
Anyways, I had no internet over the weekend, and discovered something amazing. I get so much more done without the internet. Not only did I get plenty done on Dream, but also had tons of time for other things as well.
Now that I'm back I was delighted to find out that zzz was back, and after watching the new soul hunter vid, I'm feeling a bit inadequate. He better sell it or at least set up donations, or I'll kick his @ss.
Now I need some way to make myself feel better, so I'm going to raise my standards another notch. Mostly with a more cinematic camera, more story, some improved visuals, and a new way to shake up the gameplay, because I got a few complaints that the puzzles got a bit boring if you tried to play through all of them at once.
But what did I do recently?
Well, on saturday I added a few graphical effects. The main two were a thunder effect which someone suggested a long time ago, which looks pretty awesome, though I'm using a placeholder sound where I'm making a thunder noise through my hand. I also put a glow around the character, which though not very noticeable, makes him easier to he when he's behind something, and enhances his presence on the screen.
Sunday I did a bit more. I changed the learning curve on the rising levels, so that each time you drown the speed of the water/lava is reduced by 1/10 of whatever it is currently. Some people wont want this though, so I'll have the option to turn it off. I also did a serious adjustment to the static, so that it can tell where you are in the level and manually turn on if you do a certain something. I also rebuilt part of the lava level, after realising how poorly made part of it was.
And yesterday I did the single most important thing of all. First I'll tell you I made an adjustment to the 13th level, but that's not the most important thing.
I added an undo button.
It's really quite simple. If you were to say put a block down anywhere where you can't pick it up again without moving, you'll be given the option to press spacebar and have it be like you never set the block down. If you were to turn or move though, you would instantly lose this option. And because most of the time you'll be putting blocks in places you can't immediately reach them for puzzles, the notifier is unintrusive, at the bottom left hand of the screen. You'll be limited in how many times you can use the undo per level. It doesn't stop you from making mistakes, but it reduces the penalty for making them a bit.
Oh, and today I got word from 3d canvas about my prob. I should be back with modeling soon.
Lastly, I have a very cool idea for a new level select, which I'll show and/or tell later.
No screens today,
but you'll live.
-Ben
