Milestone week 5 has arrived! So far, I believe a lot of good work has been done since the start of this project. It made for a very good opportunity this week to reiterate on previous elements and improve their depth. I focused on increasing the ways which players can move in game as the sack. Hopefully, when the next iteration of level design is made, it compliments the new movement system and gives players the opportunity to make interesting plays. The new movements the player can now use in game is sprint, crouch, ground pound, multi jump, slide and dash. I chose not to talk about dash in detail in this devlog because the animation is not very apparent. If you double tap any key of WASD, it will move you quickly to that direction.

Sprint

Controls

To sprint the player must hold shift whilst moving using the WASD keys.

Gameplay Design

I considered adding sprint as a priority because the layout of future levels are ever increasing in size to achieve a grand scale environment. I want to provide players with the agency to quickly move across the map so they don't feel like they are stuck in a walking simulator.

Animation Design

I wanted the sprint to feel unnatural to the sack, as if it wasn't its typical mode of movement. I collected a few examples of owls running because they clearly demonstrate a very awkward running cycle because they are much more use to flying. I focused on imitating the stretching of legs and stompy running non-land owls exhibit.

Crouch

Controls

To crouch the player must hold down c or ctrl. The player can also move whilst crouched by pressing the WASD keys whilst holding down c or ctrl.

Gameplay Design

Crouching can add a lot of potential for players to squeeze into tight spaces and hide from potential threats. Crouching is also used as a sign of friendship in many multiplayer games and give players way to communicate with each other other than voice contact.

Animation Design

The biggest strength of a sack is it's boneless, like a cat. Many cats have the amazing ability to turn into liquid at will and contort their bodies in unprecedented ways. I tried to reflect this in the sacks movement as I squished the model into a more fluid like state as opposed to its idle animation. 

Ground Pound

Controls

To ground pound the player must hold down c and ctrl whilst in mid air.

Gameplay Design

The jump was updated in this week to help prevent it from feeling too floaty. When the player is falling down the gravity increase to make the player fall down faster. This allows the player to feel like they have greater control over jumping and where they land. The ground pound is design to compliment this idea even further by giving the player a near immediate movement to fall straight to the ground. This has the potential to be used as an attack against objects or even enemies.

Animation Design

When ever I think of flips and games, most immediate thought aways comes from Lego Starwars: The Complete Saga. The Jedis always had such elegance to the way they move and float through the sky as they use the force. The elegance was lost in translation because the action of ground pound is meant to be fast to get players to the ground as soon as possible. Therefore, I actually sped up the animation to give the action more juice and reflection of the force of the slam.

Multi Jump

Controls

To double jump the player must press space a second time or more whilst airborne.

Gameplay Design

The multi jump was only first intended to be a double jump, however it was just as easy to add 10 extra jumps as it was to add 1 extra jump. Whilst in the final game it is only likely the player will have two jumps by default, it does compliment an upgrade system players can use to increase the amount of jumps they can jump.

Animation Design

spins are commonly used as a way for characters to get more height out of their jumps. My focus whilst animating the sack was to focus on swing of the twist and contracting at the center of the model. I thought of the process of a centrifuge where the mass gets pulled away from the midpoint, to help guide scale of each bone in the sacks model.

ps there is also another animation in the game, see if you can find it. It has to do with crouch.

if you would like to see more images of the game then please check out my post on my website.