Hey Hello! Wow, we're already Saturday! So it's time to post a new post in your favourite blog Weekly Updates! This week has been pretty full of GUIs with some bug fixes here and there too! So get ready for a lot of pictures and pretty videos! Let's get this thing going, shall we?

Title Card

So here is the star of this post: the title card!

In games, title cards have several uses. First, they serve to properly introduce levels. Second, they are also used to entertain the player while the level is loading. In our case, they allow us to generate the level and do several other crucial things.

To create this title card, I was greatly inspired by the ones seen in the Sonic The Hedgehog series.

I won't lie: I'm a big fan of Sonic games despite how poorly made the latest games were. Most of its title cards are filled to the brim with some AESTHETIC designs. In particular, the title cards of Sonic The Hedgehog 2 on the Genesis are full of typical 90s designs. With their pointy geometric shapes and neon colours, they really scream "90s"!

Over time, title cards have developed and refined themselves. Just take a look at Sonic Forces, the latest Sonic game. Its title cards are minimal yet pretty to look at.

But, in particular, I was very inspired by the title card designs of Sonic Rush on the Nintendo DS.

With their white background and their colourful shapes, they already have quite a bit of AESTHETICS from the get-go.

So I tried to capture this style and just increase the level of Vaporwave. To do this, I tried to apply Memphis Design concepts and also use a Vaporwave colour palette. I also decided to use more "80s" geometric shapes, which means using a lot of unusual angles and shapes. With that, it gains a lot in dynamism, energy and spontaneity.

I also picked up some elements of Sonic Rush, such as unique level seals.

I've also added some original elements, such as some shapes where the level name scrolls horizontally on it.

Each element of Memphis Design is also animated. This way, it tells the player that the game is still responsive.

And finally, I also added title card transitions. They are an integral part of title cards. Having good transitions is critical to give off the right mood. If we mess that up then the consequences can be very serious...

Here is a small video showing it off:

Minor Updates

Fixed a bug where the item picking component would select the furthest pickable instead of the closest.

Optimized the item picking component to use triggers instead of ray casts.

Next Week

Next week will be a busy one. The splash screen isn't fully integrated into the level generation yet...

Right now, the problem is that the level generation is on the main thread and this makes the game stutter... One of my goals will be to move the level generation to another thread. With this, the game will remain fluid and responsive.

However, this won't be easy. First, we need to identify the isolatable processes. Then we have to move them to other threads without too much trouble.

Although I already have code that works on isolated threads, I don't think it will be the same thing. The Unity Jobs system might be a good starting point...

In short, a week of solid conception and refactoring!