Chakram
About the game
Adventure Game, 8 weeks part-time
Built on top of 2D rendering library provided by TGA
Some of my contributions include
– Grid snapping when dashing
– Spike Hazards
– Health Potions, Health and Hazards, Health Bars
– Level Loading of Various Gameplay Objects
My Work & Problems
A big challenge for me in this project was when I worked on a snapping feature that was used when dashing. In our reference game, Hyper Light Drifter, the player snapped to platform ledges when dashing. This was a feature meant to help the player not accidentally fall into the void.
I had some experience from Anima working with tile based games, and I had previously used the dividing positions with the tile size to get information about coordinates in grid space. This time it proved to be a lot more tricky than my last project. In Anima, all static environmental hazards were part of the world grid. The graphics were drawn on layers and collision information for each tile was not directly tied to any static object. This meant that it was really easy to lookup information about any tile. However in Temple of Chakram it was a different story.
All colliders were part of the object and were handled by an external library called Box2D. This was ultimately better for the game we were making because we had the option to use a lot more complex shapes, but also ended up making some implementations a bit more clunky.
The snapping feature couldn’t just place the player in a position considered safe. The player had a maximum dash length which in combination with the dash direction gave me information about which tile they were aiming for. If the tile was safe I tried to correct it to be more aligned with the grid. If it was a dangerous tile then I had to look at the surrounding tiles for an alternative.
What I learned
If I had more time on this project I would go back and put more love into the players metrics. I think a combination of more friction, a faster dash and some tweaking of the placement of the player when snapped would go a long way in polishing this feature. This is a common problem I have found in game projects. Metrics are set early in development for animators to have clear guidelines, but too little work is put into making the game feel good early on, since no one really has time to work on it. I think this an effect of overscope and poor planning early on, but with my experience I have become better at spotting it early on and being vocal about possible solutions.