Thursday 29 August 2013

Hypochondria Update #3

Ok so it's well past time for another update on Hypochondria. And as I suspected from the start, the project is snowballing...like crazy. So that October release date is out the window and I'm probably going to be looking at early next year (I hope). Right, so as mentioned before I made and uploaded a demo a while back showcasing some very early gameplay and I'm fairly happy with it. Got some good feedback off my friends, and one very kind youtuber by the name of johnyliltoe (check out his channel here) made some awesome lets play videos as well. Go watch!

So since the last post I've been working o the lung section of the game. The two main things I've gotten done are "sticky" surfaces and the new player ability. The sticky surfaces allow the cells to run vertically/upside down etc due to being covered in sticky cigarette tar. I implemented this by using box2d edgeShapes combined with a path system. The edgeShapes are used to detect when a cell collides with the sticky surface and they each have a start and finish way point as well. So once the cell is "sticking" I simply switch off the gravity for it's body and move it along the path if the player is pressing the move buttons. The way points can be used to determine the draw angle too.


In the picture above you can see a simple example of the sticky edges. The yellow line is made up of multiple edgeShapes and the green dots represent the way points. These are generated automatically when I draw the curved surface. Here's an ingame look (ignore the crappy graphics)


The other thing I've been working on is the player ability for the lungs. In the stomach section of the game the cells can turn into little spheres and roll around. In the lungs the main cell can inflate himself into a bubble ,with the other cells inside it, and float around. While in bubble form the main guy can't move...but the others can! So they can roll around inside him to get him moving. Here's a look at that.


That's kind of it anyway for now. Take it easy ;-)