Journal Entry 3

Date: 14.4.2024

Activity: 

- Created new items

- Implemented powerup logic

- Made most of the game playable

Notes:

My area of focus this time was adding the necessary items and their logic. I went for this first as it is necessary to fully playtest the game from start to finish (the boots are needed to make the final jump and number of gems is checked at the end).

The first item were the spring boots. I decided to adapt the 'Key' prefab to my items, so a bit of my time was spent understanding what objects does the 'Key' prefab use/appear in. Adding the boots was then pretty easy, I did add a custom floating up and down motion before pickup. Implementing the higher jump took a few tries as I had initially misunderstood what 'IncrementVerticalMovement()' does (adds one time vertical momentum).

Next to implement were the gems. The process of adding them was quite similar. They also don't have an immediate function on pickup (except for one door opening) which made it easier. However, I had to update the Key UI which of course displayed keys, not gems. I fixed this be changing the sprites as this was quite a bit easier (and no keys are present in my game).

Last item left was the torch which is supposed to increase the glow of the player. Item was again added in a similar way, but implementing the logic took me some time as editing the Light 2D component always removed my code on recompilation. It also took some time to find the correct variable names and find light values that worked.

The rest of my time way spent tweaking various parts of the level to make it actually playable (and reachable by player). Right now it should be playable from start to finish, except for the missing logic at the end of the game.

Invested hours: 

Creating items (sprites, prefabs, animations): 2 hours

Implementing item logic: 2.5 hours

Adjusting the rest of the level to make it reachable/playable: 1.5 hour

Outcome:

Updated the work in progress project on MFF Gitlab.