It’s Beta time, which means a whole bunch of exciting changes and updates for Shadow Traveler and Milo.

Technical Accomplishments

Carry your boxes anywhere

💡 With our new interactive light system that allows for any pickup object to cast a shadow based on any light in the level!

• We have decided to embrace this behaviour which was shown by many players through our playtesting sessions. If there is a pickup object you’ve made a special connection with, we are allowing you to take it for a ride through the level for as long as there is a 3D path through which you can take it.

Redesigned Jump

💡 Jumps are switching back to being non Rigid Body based

• This change aims at resolving some of the issues that originated from having the player collide with shadows and other objects while trying to jump, and bugs that arose from having the Unity Physics engine handle too much of the player’s movement.
• The jump will feel the exact same way as before which play-testers seemed to like, the only change is technical in the sense that the way that we make it happen has been modified.

Updates

Level 2 is here

💡 Our initial draft of level 2 is now playable

• Here you can engage with the new Interactable system, new light types, and cool different puzzles as Milo traverses this supermarket parking lot.
• The interactable system has been fully discussed in previous Devlogs, so head there for more information on it.

Supporting more types of pickup objects

💡 Our highlight system now supports any object type!

• This means that pickup objects can now take any shape or form, making the interactions with them and their general behaviour much more fun.

New interactable

💡 The multi-light switch system!

• Activate many switches across the map in order to turn on or off their related lights.
• These come with their own simple particle system that lets the player know which switches are currently active or not.

Other Miscellaneous Changes

• Milo now has an idle animation (and a new rig!)
• Object-specific SFX and new music!
• The “Super Jump” bug has been vanished along with the Rigid Body-based jumping as discussed in the “Redesigned Jump” section.

Next Steps

• Work on polishing for our second level based on Beta presentation feedback.
• Start up development of the tutorial level.
• Integrate more interactable mechanics of the interactable system into level 2.
• Implement the 3D player pickup animations as provided by the art team.
• Wrap up ⁉️