Technical Accomplishments

(major changes and our technical challenge) 4th iteration of Shadow System completed (and here to stay this time)

💡 Making use of the QuickHull algorithm and multi-threading to run it as efficiently as possible, we can now make use of multiple lights in the most efficient way we’ve been able to come up with.

• This has allowed for:
  • Multiple light based shadows
  • Shadows are now pitch-black, making it easier for the player to plan around them
  • Crisp shadow volumes
  • Smooth 2D colliders on wall shadows

(major changes) Movement system

💡 In order to integrate our new shadow system, we’ve had to make fitting changes to the way our player moves and interacts with the world and most importantly with other colliders.

• 3D movement has now gone back to being RigidBody based, this allows for a reduction in how jittery the player gets when colliding with a shadow.
• 2D movement stays as 2D based, but now with a new custom collider system making use of box casts to allow for less jittery interactions with shadows it collides with.
• Fixed inconsistencies in the way rounding corners and swapping from the ground to the wall player distanced the player from the wall.

(new!) Controller Input

💡 Controller players rejoice as we now allow for controller input in the game. The controls can be found in our GDD, along with the existing PC M&K input.

Other miscellaneous changes

• GDD created and posted on our itch.io page for everyone to check out the game’s vision for the future.
• (new!) 360 Cornering System. Making use of corner prefabs we can now move 360 degrees around a room in any given level.
• Incorporated 3D model for our shadow!

Next Steps

• Getting our first level fully created and polished.
• Deep dive into level design concepts and experimentation.
• Keep incorporating new assets created by the arts and music teams into our level design.
• Further polishing and bug-fixing with the new movement system.

Important Discoveries

• QuickHull is expensive, but we managed to tame its performance cost with a smart multi-threading system.
• RigidBody movement works great in the 3D space for our floor player, but not quite right when keeping the player attached to the wall, therefore Translation must be kept as the method for 2D wall movement.