Weekly Dev Log #5

Summary

This week's changes primarily involved introducing button prompts and other UI changes for our first playtest session that occurred on Friday October 17th. We also built the level select system, re-sequenced the scripted events for level 1 (cafe date), re-added our tech demo phone level as level 0, and updated the main ship textures and model

During this week we discovered two major memory leaks, one of which has been fixed and one of which we are still investigating.

Addressed Feedback

The most major point of feedback we've tackled is UI.

In Game Task Guide - We've added an in game task system to help guide players on what their current task is as well as control the scripted set of tasks for the particular level. This comes in the form of the "Brain Terminal" which is located in the head room and allows players to see the description of the current task.

Button Prompts - We've added button prompts in screen and world space to help guide players on the controls. These are shown when players hover over terminals, when they interact with a terminal to control a limb, and when the arms in the human world hover over an interactable object (such as the phone). These are hardcoded to ps4 controls right now as we have more ps4 controllers than other types of controllers but we plan to map the control type based on the specific player's gamepad type which we have the information on.

Player Identification - We got some feedback that players had a hard time identify who they were controlling so we've changed the character select screen to let the players pick their color which is then reflected in the border of the panel in game.

Unaddressed Feedback

Arm Control Complexity - Due to the memory leak we discovered, we had to push back the arm control complexity reduction changes. This  will be addressed for the alpha build.

Camera Layout - We've stuck with the current 4 equal panel layout for now though we are still considering changes to increase the space the eye camera takes up, especially now that a good portion of the player panel is taken up by their controls.

Additional Changes

Level Select - We've added a level select system to handle easy player level select, level progression, and multiple levels in game. This system supports locking any specific level until another level is completed.

Ship texture update - We've updated the texture of the internal ship to help distinguish the walls and floor for navigation purposes. We've also replaced the elevator to the head with a simplified version to help prevent players clipping out.