This week, I spent the majority of my time working on narrative. It’s sort of been my first real dive into unreal blueprints, which has been a long time coming. Kai set up a very good system to allow me conditions for the different text popups, and I think it’s going to be a great tool moving forward as I wrap up the narrative this week. For now, in the game I’ve got a few placeholder pieces with basic spatial trigger conditions, but I hope to implement some more advanced text options next week, that will change based on what areas the player has already explored, and thus which messages they have seen, to give the impression of an ongoing progression of narrative delivery. We do have the audio system for the inventor monologues hooked up (thanks Duncan!) but unfortunately our actress was not available this week, so we’ve had to push that back. The sound presence of that character should hopefully help our immersion a lot.

Talking with Kate has really helped me get a better and clearer picture of who these two characters are, the mask and the inventor. It’s important to establish their relationship, and both of their relationships to the player, and I think I’m starting to get a sense of the tones that both of these characters embody. The inventor is very cold, and treats everything as either something to be analyzed and used or ignored. She speaks to the player when the player is doing something she doesn’t like, or when there’s a vital piece of information she has to get across. The mask is somewhat tongue in cheek, and very much acts like the somewhat passive observer it serves as, casually commenting on the destruction of the hotel, the aggressiveness of the enemies, and the choices the player makes. These are the impressions that I’ve built as I’ve been writing, but the plan next week is to have everyone in one place, with Kate, and hash out the narrative details as close as we can before I finalize it in the game.

The space of the game is very much shaping up. We’ve got the start to end of the level present, if not populated and complete, but the player can navigate almost all the spaces they’ll be able to in the final game. The lobby is the big thing, and making sure we’ve got the objectives themselves communicated and present. There are still a few feedback issues with enemies to be worked out as well. The biggest change coming up this week is the powers rework. Absorb doesn’t work, inherently within itself, and we’re changing the whole thing to a counter. The player gets energy if they block at the right time, and a shockwave if they block perfectly. It’s code that exists, we just need to shift it around a bit, but hopefully it should make that mechanic a lot more active. With the mask and movement however, testers are saying that they like them. Adding an upgrade screen with descriptions of powers will help immensely. Communication is the biggest hurdle we face at this point given the vast density of mechanics we offer.