In Further Detail

Mechanics Breakdown:

• Fixed Camera:

  • I was tasked to create three fixed camera angles that could be easily cycled between by level designers.

  • The cameras were made to be able to be cycled between left facing sides roller, right facing side scroller, and fixed follow cam

  • The fixed follow cam was made to be modeled after Super Mario 64’s camera as it would attempt to try to always stay behind the player for the duration of their movement.

• Progression Valves:

  • To allow for more options in level creation I created a coin collection pickup and tracker

  • Level designers would be able to lock off certain sections of the level using coin gates

  • Players would be required to collect a certain number of coins in order for the coin gate to open. This allowed level designers to have diverging paths.

  • The inclusion of diverging paths offers players unique decisions on how to progress through a given level. These decisions lead to players more actively engaging with the game.

My Biggest Challenge:

Fixed Camera

• I struggled initially to get the fixed camera behind the player to work. I initially tried locking the camera to the player’s back but then learned that this would lead to the camera being incredibly choppy and very disorienting.

• I eventually tried tying the camera movement to the same keys as the player’s movement. This led to it working great and as I tested my camera against the examples I was given, I found that it worked incredibly similarly.

• I had no problems with the left and right cameras, however, and the most time-consuming part of these sections was updating the movement to match the camera’s orientation instead of the characters.

• Overall this was a fantastic learning experience for how the camera and character movement tie together, and the results I came to do a fantastic job of lining up with the actual character/camera movement seen in the reference game I was given (Super Mario 64).