Galactic Soccer Skeleton Complete
Over the past week, I completed the skeleton of Galactic Soccer. This means that the game is fully playable and everything is working roughly as expected. Most of the gameplay variables have been set to those which seem to create the most comfortable and effective gameplay experience, however these variables might still change at a later date if a different feel is desired or if other variables are found to be more effective. (These variables refer to things such as the speed of the ships, bounciness, and points awarded for goals.)
It was not easy to get the game up to this stage, as there were some unexpected setbacks to my development.
The biggest setback was the concept of two players sharing a keyboard between themselves to play. The problem with this is that most keyboards are not able to read many keystrokes at the same time. This was quite stressful because the way the ships would move were based on button presses and releases, however controllers were necessary to allow for so many different controls to occur between multiple players without input being frequently missed.
Although it was stressful, it turned out that it was quite easy to set up controllers using Unity's inbuilt Input Manager. After configuring the sticks, giving them appropriate axis names to refer to them through in the code, and tweaking the settings (such as the "dead zone" where input will be 0 even if it slightly off), it was time to change all of the code which I had already written. With some help, I discovered that I was able to create a better effect than what I had with the keyboard using about a fifth of the code I had previously used.
In the end, split screen with controllers was the best decision.
There were some bonus things which I completed on top of the skeleton, to get a headstart for next week, when I will focus on how the game looks/sounds. I put some dust (as a particle effect) on each of the players cameras so that dust would appear and stay in the same world location as the player drives past. This means that the player can easily tell which direction they are moving in, even if they are moving sideways or backwards, reducing disorientation. I also did a prototype of the rocket ships trails using the inbuilt trail renderer, because it makes a really cool effect.
There was some more good news today; this assessment, which I thought was due next Friday (in 1 week) is actually due the Wednesday after that. Although this does not mean there will be any more class time, it relieves a bit of stress (although I still think I can have most of it finished by next Friday and will aim for that regardless).
UI is another thing which will be necessary to add to this game, however today I found that the UI would be an assessment of its own, and will be done after submitting the functional (and aesthetically pleasing) game, effectively giving me more time to focus on making everything appealing in the upcoming week.
I look forward to finishing this game to a very high standard.