Week Seven / Day One

So, just as planned last Friday my first order of business today was cleaning up the level select screen. I'll just put the comparison up and then explain a few things:

The most obvious change is probably the colors. I wanted something that wasn't so dramatic, something that just blended a bit better. It may change, but I like it for now. The layout is the most important change made. What I had before was very barebones, and haphazardly created. Going into the creation I didn't know exactly what I would need, so I just kept adding things where they fit when I created them. However, I would say the layout now has a structure I can live with. Showing a list a levels rather than just the currently selected seems to give the whole thing a more solid feel as well.

The second task for today was adding level tips that are displayed at the beginning of each level. They are just another couple lines of input for each level, and the little window they are in scales nicely depending on the amount of text, with newlines being handled automatically.

What you see on the top is just a simple test, however the bottom is one of my tutorial levels as seen in the above screenshot of the level select screen. These will be the first levels the player goes through which introduce the basic concepts to the game. One problem I've realized as I've let others try the game is that the core mechanic doesn't seem to click right away, with a few claiming that it is just too hard. I'm hoping by introducing different scenarios and techniques piecewise every player will be able to become a Chromovis master.

Lastly, in accordance with the tip screen I added a 'halt' that occurs at the beginning of the level. When the user closes the tip screen, the game doesn't start right away, allowing them to survey their surroundings before beginning. Tomorrow I would like to add a 'Zoom Out' effect to let the player get a view of the entire playing field, as well as start looking into sound. I have a feeling I'm going to need to do a decent amount of reading about OpenAL, as well as a fair bit of work to get it intertwined with the engine, so it can't be put off any longer. After that is working decently I need to start the level builder, as I believe it is the last major hurdle for the whole project. After those two sections it comes down to final cleanup. But, that is still a few weeks away, so in the meantime, happy coding.