Blog Post 1, Sprint 1

 Hey! I'm the lead for Bedtime Climb, a 3D horizontal platformer. My team has just finished our first 2 week sprint for our project, and we are incredible happy with the progress we got done.

To begin, let me give you a brief overview and summary of what type of game we are trying to make. I wanted to create a map that rotates around the player, with the player technical not being able to move on the X or Z access. Because of that, all the levels would need be resemble a long cylinder. I also needed to implement moving backgrounds and props to help sell the illusions that player is moving (instead of just being completely stationary, which he actually is). Every level would be a different "dream", and thus have a different theme. We are early in development but we currently have 5 levels planned, and have just completed the basics for the first 2 this sprint.

That entailed me doing the modeling, all the rotation scripts, and making basic materials for the level. Below is a zoomed out video of my completed level. Here you can see how the map is the one that actually rotates, with the background moving in a separate direction.

You can see the clouds and some platforms moving by themselves. But they also change direction or increase in speed appropriately when the player "moves". You can actually see the player, a little black square at the bottom of the level completely stationary, as from this camera angle your mind is not being tricked into believing that he's moving.

In this next video though, everything is completely the same except the camera. There are no changes to moment or the level in any way, yet because of unique angle combined with the rotation of the map, it makes you believe that the player is truly moving left and right.

If I hadn't told you the player is stationary, you most likely would of never noticed, and that's why we plan on keeping that a secret from the player, we need them to believe they are moving.

Anyways, that level was what I spent the majority of my time on. I spent maybe 20 minutes on making some bare bone materials. 

Speaking on materials, we we're instructed very clearly to not have art in our game, as it should be focused on level design and being a playable prototype. So why did I do art? Because of our unique and untraditional movement system, the player needs references in the environment to help sell the idea that their character is moving. This is why I also made a moving background and props. The issue is if they are all grey, there is no contrast, especially because the tower is designed to not cast any shadows on background (to give depth). So I had to make some level of materials to easily visually distinguish portions of the level, so that the player would believe that they are in motion.

With everything being grey, it was very clear for the player's brain to determine that the character was not actually moving. So I made contrast, depth, and rotation everywhere to help sell it. In fact, 90% of the scripts I made were regarding rotation.

To conclude, Sprint 1 went very well. We were able to finish 30 cards during the sprint, and have playable parkour for both level one and 2. For sprint 2 I plan on incorporating a level switch system, as well as a countdown, and finally a way to actually "Win" the level. I finished all my assigned cards during the sprint, and along with my teammates, added even more cards to our workload. My groupmates were happy with the workload I assigned, and as of now, development on Bedtime Climb is going smoothly.