So we have a character, and certain way the physics work. Cool. I want this game out reasonably soon, so that meant I needed to keep things simple. So minimal amounts of non functional stuff and no heavy animation. I don’t have an art team, just me. So the thought was to make the legs dangle and have shots of webbing shoot out.
And sure, this’ll make some nice still shots, but the character was going to be very nonfunctional looking. It just sort of floats there, and things shoot out of him. Actually, that’s kind of weird. Hmm, trying to rationalize this brings up some odd imagery.
The rope shooting core mechanic works well. To make a spider really work, I’d have had to use his legs more. Looking back, I’d imagine constructing webs through a level for use by your character, vaguely similar to rainbow platforms in Rainbow Islands. But again, this’d be an abstract control, which like PuffBOMB would work best on a mouse. Nope, the scheme here is direct and local to the character. An analog gamepad works well here, which is a goal behind the project.
The solution to my “practical lazyness” seemed to be to de-evolve the character. The design isn’t finalized, but it’s certainly brought up some questions, and provided solutions to functionality problems. Not to mention, opened up several more control possibilities. We’re almost up to date. Don’t miss our exciting next episode. Part 5, The Character.