Summary
For Timebox Five, we worked on finishing up all the levels that will be in our game (a total of sixteen) and refining previous levels we had already completed. We also worked on fixing numerous bugs that came up including animals going out of bounds, animal controls, and build issues. In the end, we were able to make a working build that has a semi-complete version of our game.
Concept Ideas and Design
To plan out the last few levels, a few designs were made for the viper and the crocodile level. They can be seen below:
What We Accomplished
Gorilla Level
The gorilla level focuses on the main special ability of the gorilla who is able to grapple onto trees. The player can switch into first person mode in order to aim the grapple and then use left click to grapple. Once the user is in grapple mode, they can hold left click and use WASD to swing around. The gorilla level is based around finding all the puzzle boxes and completing the memory puzzle in order to escape the enclosure.
Viper Level
The viper level is based on timed challenges where you have to find all the treasure chests in a specific area in order to activate bridges, gates, and platforms. The viper has the special ability to have a quick speed boost which can help complete these timed challenges. Treasure chests are activated by going near them with any animal, and the player also has to look out for explosive barrels which will cause them to respawn.
Crocodile Level
The crocodile level is focused on combat where the player can use the crocodile's left click attack in order to defeat the spider enemies. The crocodile also has an AOE attack when the player presses "E". By defeating all the spiders and solving the puzzle boxes, the player navigates their way through the level in order to reach the spider queen boss at the end. Once the spider queen has been defeated, the player has compelted the level.
Final Level
We split the final level into two parts. The first part has the player using the giraffe, fire salamander, polar bear, and viper to escape from the zoo. There are four different sections to the first part, which include lighting on the lanterns with the giraffe's special, sliding down roofs with the fire salamander, activating pressure plates with the polar bear to move spotlights, and disable all the electric boxes within a certain amount of time with the viper.
The second part of the final level has the player using the penguin, scorpion, zebra, and desert hare. There are five different section to the second part, which includes using the penguin's special to raise platforms, climbing over the wall with the scorpion, making it across platforms with the zebra, traversing the junkyard with the desert hare, and making a final escape with all the animals to avoid the red wall. Once the user successfully completes this part, the game will end and the credits will appear.
Level Refinements
We refined various levels by checking map boundaries, enhancing the terrain and scenery, adding passive animals, and working on additional cut scenes and camera transitions.
- Passive animals were added to the reindeer, giraffe, wolf, and gorilla levels.
- The lion/cave level was refined to add more foliage, adjust platforms, and rocks.
- In the warehouse section, the raccoon now moves with the moving platforms, particle systems were added, and interactions were fixed.
- In the office section, additional lighting was placed, interactions were fixed, more particle systems were added, camera no longer collides with furniture, and scene transitions back to level select.
- The reindeer level had added particle systems and camera fixes to make exploring easier.
- The hippo level had particle systems added, pressure plates fixed, a scene transition added, and more hints to the simon says puzzle.
- The giraffe level was fixed as the terrain was scaled down, colliders adjusted, and more scenery added.
- Sound effects were added to combat related levels.
Team Organization
The roles during this timebox were the following:
- Maddy Carek: Level Refinement
- Alex Chan: Gorilla Level and Bug Fixes
- Von Mbah: Passive AI
- Sara Miskus: Level Design
- Eric Sullivan: Combat Refinement & Crocodile Level
- Jack Weiner: Cameras
Future Plans
- Fix any remaining bugs
- Polish the final build