Journal Entry #1

Date: 03.04.2024

Activity:

- Setup the work environment for Project B.

- Created sprites for the crouch-walk animation and created the animation.

- Modified the player animator controller to implement the crouch walk.

- Modified the player so there is not a set amount of health after which the character dies, but with every hit the character is just reset to the last checkpoint.

Note:

As part of the setup for Project B, I picked out the sprites that I will need for all the movement enhancements and obstacles in the scene, created prefabs for those that didn't have them already and modified the existing ones to match the specifications in the GDD (I am only missing the implementation of the bounce and double jump mechanics). During the setup, I realized that there are no sprites for a crouch-walk in the provided assets, so I Frankenstein-ed together some from already existing sprites for other animations. The crouch-walk animation is a little choppy, but passable.

The bigger problem was figuring out how to implement the crouch walk. I spent quite a lot of time going through the scripts for the player character and trying to understand how it is implemented and what I should include to enable walking while crouching, and at the end I realized that it is all done from the Animator Controller. Taking a note from how the Locomotion animation state was implemented, I exchanged the existing Crouch state for a Crouch state from a Blend Tree which swaps between the stationary crouch and the crouch walk depending on if the player is moving or not.

Since the game doesn't have a health system, I modified the Damageable script to not count the health and to not trigger the Game Over screen, but to just respawn the player at the last checkpoint whenever they are hit. I also started to build the level, which is when I realized that in the beginning part, it would've probably been a smarter idea for the pillars that the player has to climb up by bouncing on the critters were floating instead of going all the way to the ground, so the player would be able to walk back if they fall down between them. Now, they would have to reset to the last checkpoint in the case that they fall, so it could get annoying. On the other hand, it might be faster than having to walk back.

My next step is to implement the manual reset to the last checkpoint and the bounce and double jump mechanics for the critters and the gems, and once I have all the mechanics in order, to start to build out the level.

Duration: 4.5 hours