Mini-Map

What would a metroidvania-type game be without a mini-map? This was actually pretty interesting to do. it’s one of those things I had been putting off for a while now as I was kind of nervous about how or even if I was able to pull it off yet.

How does it work? I wrote a script that gets the size of the level map and the player’s relative position to the centre of it.

I compare the size of the level to the minimap and get the relative size between them. I can then place the player avatar on the minimap position relative to the level scale. It updates in real time which is fun.

The map is covered by tiles that reveal when the player’s avatar makes contact with them.

Scene Load System

A big issue I ran into as I’ve built up the demo level is performance. As I’ve added more particles/platforms/enemies etc. the framerate on my dinosaur of a rig started dropping down to 40 FPS when in Unity editor. Yikes!!

Although most other machines I had seen less of a problem. This was becoming a bit of a pain for play-testing and obviously this was only going to get worse. Plus, it would be better for the game to run on the most machines possible.

So what to do? I decided to look into the Unity Scene Management System. Have some triggers to load and unload the scenes as needed. Should be simple enough. right? right?

Unfortunately, loading up scenes live cause a slight freeze, this is probably caused by all the scripts being run during that frame. Yuck! After many false starts….

Eureka!

Why not load the new scenes with their GameObjects set to inactive? And activate them in sequence? Working pretty good so far. We are now staying over 60fps in heavy areas and spend most of the time 100fps-120fps region.

Changes to the player animation/artwork

Was missing some of the shadows and detail work on Quinn. Made some changes to the way her cape attaches. Still a bunch of clean-up, colour work left though.

Add chests

Added chests you can shoot to spawn goodies.

3X melee attack

sped up the melee attack and gave it some new animations, they are still in a rough state at the moment.

New Platforming Area

Created a new area. A platforming section.

Bug Fixes and Game Mechanic Tweaks

some bug fixes, mostly the big ones. Some tweaking to game mechanics. (uncoupling the dodge roll from the energy meter). Increasing melee attack speed, adding more gravity to the jumps

Other Stuff

Add wipes

Some basic wipes for transitions between scenes and after respawn, right now it’s pretty boring, will eventually pretty them up

hidden rooms

Just a simple reveal mechanic for hidden areas

destructible blocks

Added some art and juice to the destructible blocks

Thank you very much for taking the time to check out this latest update! Cheers!

M.