Week 10 - Graphics / Presentation

Initial Implementation

This week's checkpoint saw the implementation of proper graphics to take the place of placeholders, the expanded range of particle effects, and the first use of post-processing effects. There was only a small amount of scripting done this week as most of my time was spent on creating visual assets. Fortunately the planet, debris and rock sprites were fairly straight forward to make and implement, however the background involved much more work to get right and achieve the parallax scrolling effect (with different layers scrolling past at different speeds).

I had to be careful not to overdo any of the individual background layers, as I ran the risk of distracting the player's attention away from the obstacles. The bright white obstacles needed to be the most obvious visual features visible to the player so they know what to avoid. In order to differentiate the background from the rest of the game, I made the layers fairly dark and also blurred them to slightly different degrees to give a sense of distance (the stars in the lowest layer of the background are blurred the most, with the rocks in the couple top layers the least). To achieve the parallax effect, I attached an empty object to the camera with multiple child objects representing the different layers of the background. A script controls how quickly each of these layers scrolls past the camera by applying a multiplier (between 0 and 1) to the position of the layer every frame. The looping is achieved by detecting when the edge of the image is about to become visible, and changing its position just in time so that it never breaks the illusion (almost like the train track scene in Wallace and Gromit).

Planet destruction was finally added this week, although it still needs work. So far it's just a series of particle effects including a shockwave, big rock chunks and small rock chunks all combined to give a destructive effect. Eventually I'd like to add a bit more detail to the effect and give them a colour other than white (looks a bit strange having a coloured planet break up into white chunks).

The force field now flashes red when hit, just to make it more clear to the player that they are damaging it rather than just crashing into it. Even though I never received any feedback from players indicating confusion over this, I think its still a useful addition and makes for a nice little effect.

Finally, there's the post-processing effects. I have applied a small amount of bloom to the game to give the bright white obstacles a subtle glow against the dark background. I played around with the bloom (and a few other effects) for quite a while, wary of the danger of overdoing it and making the game hard to look at. Clarity is the number one priority, so any effects applied to the game have to be subtle so as not to distract from the game and add a layer of unnecessary difficulty.

Additionally, a combination of bloom and chromatic aberration is used to give a quick "pulse" effect when the player activates a powerup - this was added as previously only a small particle effect would play to show when this occurred, but I think the particles alone were too weak.

Some other features added that were not related to the visuals:

• Fixed issue where debris and chunks would float away and out of the level bounds permanently, now they are "recycled" by teleporting them to a random position in the level (this is done outside the vision of the player to avoid objects popping in and out of view).
• Added "Rampage Mode" powerup, which allows the player to destroy any debris or chunk obstacle they run into.
• Added "Plasma Ball" powerup, which allows the player to instantly destroy a force field upon collision - regardless of it's health.
• Removed "Gravity Field" powerup, as it was not particularly satisfying or useful and sometimes actually a detriment (would make debris move faster, making them harder to dodge).

Player Feedback

During the playtesting session, I received generally positive feedback regarding the newly-added visual features and effects. The planet destruction particle effects and the powerup activation effect were the two new features which attracted the most attention (as was hoped!). The planet destruction is something I especially want to play up with better looking particles, but not necessarily more - I could also consider applying some post-processing effects during the destruction as well.

One other minor piece of feedback I received was concerned with the difficulty of the intercepting missiles that follow the player. As I am constantly playtesting my game, I have become accustomed to the difficulty level and know how it works under the hood, so any feedback about the gameplay/difficulty is very valuable to me. Fortunately it's quite easy for me to change the movement speed of the missiles, or perhaps the spawn rate - I'll make sure to have a look at this soon.

For the moment, I will continue making a few graphical addictions/tweaks and start to shift focus on next week's checkpoint: UI and polish.