Constellation Chasers Starlight Fantastico

1) Set the Y-axis to be the rigidbody’s velocity in the Y direction

Thought Process

To create 2.5D movement similar to something like “Paper Mario” or “Bug Fables”, the rigidbody’s velocity was set to the Y-axis in the Y-direction. The X and Z-axes just use the normal move input (which are of type Vector2) multiplied by the speed. Since we are considering our player character in the 2D space, and therefore use a Vector2, the Z-axis’s move input grabs the Y component.

Results

The movement looks like it comes straight out of “Paper Mario”, complete with a turnaround ability and how the camera follows players. Although, the camera is positioned higher than the example game.

2) Probuilder and Google Drawings

Thought Process

Probuilder offered the fastest pipeline of prototype to final asset, since it’s in-engine. Originally, the pieces were squares, so when we had the extra time to run the generator using hexagons, the assets needed to be remade.

The textures were drawn in Google Drawings, namely because I didn’t want to open up Illustrator. It offered the most basic set of options that I needed, while still giving me enough wiggle room to create textures that popped. Since the world was 2.5D, it made sense to have some of the set dressings also be in 2D, so assets such as the trees and hay bales were also made in Google Drawings.

Results

The change from squares to hexagons really made our style stand out. The vector-style textures also gave a cutesy appeal for aesthetics.

3) World-scrolling, Water, & Tractor beam

Thought Process

The water you see in the final version is just a simple tiling effect using a pre-made water texture. However, the original version of the water shader was self-reliant and had caustics effects. It was removed due to not meshing well with the world-scrolling effect, which took precedence over how cool it looked.

World-scrolling took a bit to throw together. As seen in the final game, we used a log-scrolling effect, however, there also exists an option to switch to a sphere-scrolling effect in the script powering the shader. The sphere effect, unfortunately, did not look well in multiplayer, and actively made it more difficult to determine what tile a player’s currently hovering over. Although this became an issue closer to the deadline, the ring indicating which tile a player is on is shown directly pointing down, not quite encompassing the tile. With a bit more time, the scroll effect could’ve been added to the ring effect.

The tractor beam was originally a purple, swirling tornado, with wavy effects. This too ran into issues when testing multiplayer, as it only ran on the local screens. Instead, due to time constraints, a much more simplistic tractor beam was made, with a lighting beam wandering about the cone.

Results

While numerous changes had to be made, both to accomodate the multiplayer aspect as well as the gameplay, the effects gave personality to an already eye-catching world.