Week 4 (March 20th - March 27th)

Mechanic Cleanup:

I spent this week fixing some issues with my game, such as the player being able to embark/ disembark the mech from the resource collectors, since they are children of the mech and their colliders also become triggers, so the embarking logic also applies to them. To fix this, I added an extra collider to the outside of the collectors that can only let game objects on the pickup layer to pass through preventing the player from being prompted to enter the mech.

I also fixed an issue where the items picked up by players were very jittery as they were being carried around. By setting the grabbed objects Rigidbody as kinematic when players are holding it, the objects movement is super smooth, but doesn’t have any physics interactions when its being carried. This an effective fix, but it may need revisiting.

Game Jam 2:

This week we also started our second Game Jam, where our prompt was UI, UX and the Juice. This Game Jam's focus was more on creating good game feel, adding quailty features. We were also allowed to continue our old Game Jam in this one.

I decided to add onto my current build, by implementing camera bobbing for the mech, to make it feel weighty. I also wanted to make my UI more interesting, so I deced to make the players UI Diagetic, in the form of a wrist mounted display, that they need to pull up to see the status of the mechs systems.

This week I made the players UI, modelling a test version of the arm uses animation states to appear when the player holds tab, and is putaway when the player releases the button.