Devlog v0.31 - A box

Oops.

Introduction

With Ride of the Time Bed 2 updated to include a tutorial and small tweaks, it was time to leave it behind for now. I want to spend another 4 weeks tweaking that little game, but unfortunately, I don't have the time, there's an arcade and at least 3 more games to be made! So I went to work, and about two days later (this log is written quite a few days later) I had this:

I then added a quit "button" (the door), the coin button, and of course a volume slider opened by a speaker box, some UI elements to indicate how to interact with things, and that's where we are right now!

Arcade Machines

As a virtual arcade, of course the games should be started by interacting with their respective arcade machines! I found some neat free to use models on the Asset Store here, as well as a really easy to use Outline asset which can be found here and is something I should've found and used waaaaayyyyy earlier to highlight interactibles. I think the Outline is broken on the arcade machine in the uploaded version, but I've since fixed that.

The menu of each game is actually located in the Arcade scene, and projected on a world space UI on the Arcade Machine. Only when play mode is selected does the game switch to the game scene. This was a bit of a hassle, but it seemed the easiest way to accomplish scene switching. When interacting with the machine, the player's movement is disabled, a second Camera takes over and moves to put the UI in screen, and then the main menu is enabled (as well as switching Post Processing volumes). The reverse happens when the player presses "Exit". It all works quite well in my opinion. A Persistent object remembers what the last game was that the player activated, allowing me to put the scene in the right configuration on loading. This is somewhat messy, and required me to re-write my mouselook script (not present in this version), but it works.

This is the setup in the Editor. Yes, that block waaaaaay in the distance is the actual Arcade xD
(Ignore the second machine in the game view, this screenshot is from a slightly newer version)

Attract Mode

As I mentioned in a previous log, I want the arcade machines to have an Attract Mode. You can read about it here, but in short the arcade machines should advertise their game, and attempt to convince players to play them. To make this, I added a render texture to the screen of the machine, which is visible whenever its main menu isn't. I then have a second camera with a local post processing volume elsewhere in the scene, as well as a video player.

Currently, the attract mode of Time Bed switches between showing short clips of gameplay footage, and showing off the high scores. I noticed in the playtest that high scores immediately challenged people to go and beat their friends/classmates, so it was probably worth the work of getting the live highscores to display. If I have the time, I'll add a splash screen and maybe some tips to the mix, but for now this will do. It also says "Insert Coin", because of course it does. We are going to ignore that the post processing doesn't apply to that UI element half the time 😅. Of course, it also plays the game's music, the audio source of which is spatial, so it really sounds like it comes from the machine. I want the final arcade to be designed in a way that when standing at interact distance of a machine, you can only hear that machine's audio, but otherwise you can hear several at once.

The attract mode is something I'm very proud of, it really makes it feel like a machine. Eventually, probably in the second iteration, the Arcade itself will also feature an Attract Mode, which it should enter when the player hasn't moved for a bit. This Attract mode will show off the various games. I'm thinking of adding a "Can you beat [name]'s [score] in [game]" text that flashes up in this one. Since this will be presented at a school showcase, hopefully this really pulls people into playing!

Coins and Tickets

I added two temporary UI icons for coins and tickets. In the final result, I want coins to be used to start a game, as well as when the "Play Again" option is selected after a Game Over. The player's max coin amount will be limited, but new coins can be acquired for free by pressing a button in the Arcade. The idea here is to remind players to take a break, as well as encourage them to spend tickets and play different games. For now, the coin button is implemented, but not much more than that. It's going to be something I'll fully implement in the second iteration of the arcade.

The same goes for tickets, which are not implemented at all at the moment. Tickets will be earned by playing games. Preferably, the machine physically prints them out as some sort of string of physics objects, which would be AWESOME. Anyway, if time allows, a shop is present, which allows the player to upgrade the Arcade by spending tickets. How or what exactly these upgrades would be I don't know, it's probably going to be some cosmetics or something. It's also fairly low on the priority list, unfortunately.

UI

The current UI elements for coins and tickets are a simple icon with text on it. They're ugly as all hell, but fixing that can wait until iteration two or three, hopefully at that time I'll have something more thematic/aesthetic for the arcade itself, so I can make the UI fit in. Also, currently they go over the UI of the game menus, which is something I very much want to change.

Better are the pop-ups for interacting with things. They use icons to show which button to press to interact with an interactible, and the visible icon depend on which control scheme is active, which is very neat. Similar pop-ups should show up with basic look and move controls whenever the game is started up, or has gone in and out of attract mode (in case players have switched). These will probably get a font change, but are otherwise done.

Concluding Thoughts & What's Next

I would say that once again, I should write devlogs more frequently so I can keep them smaller but uh... at this point I'm two days into the boat racing game. Yeah...

Anyway, I really miss having an artist to work with, and my lack of experience in building physical blockouts/levels or environments is really showing. Making the room look good is a struggle, and most likely I'll resort to using some sort of asset. I've scoured the store a bit, but found nothing (at least in an acceptable price range) that really represented what I wanted. Having someone who can make some (simple) assets, as well as has a good eye for steering players and aesthetics, would probably elevate this to a level that I unfortunately won't be able to reach on my own. Considering that one of the biggest focuses of this project is its presentation, that's a real shame. It's probably something to work on in the future, when I'm on less of a time limit.

On the other hand, I am really really happy with how the attract mode turned out, as well as the little UI elements for interaction and the outline asset. It's pretty much exactly what I had in mind for this, which is really really nice. Playtesting will have to show what others think.

So, what's next? Well, importantly some playtesting has to happen. The tutorial for Time Bed is still untested (which is BAD), and so is the Arcade. I'm pretty sure people will be able to figure out how to navigate the Arcade, but I still want to observe people's reactions and get their feedback on it. 

Apart from that, first we'll be working on SpectacuSailer. By which I mean, I worked on that in the past two days, and the game should be implemented within another day of work. That's going to be... another long Devlog ;_;. As for the Arcade, next up is making coins and tickets functional, adding the SpectacuSailer machine and its attract mode, and at least a prototype attract mode for the Arcade itself. Hopefully, at this point I've figured out how to do its aesthetics too.

Thank you for reading, and stay tuned!