Over the past couple of weeks, the game has gone through numerous play tests. While it was clear that the game has potential and many positive areas, there were a few issues that kept becoming apparent.
One of the main ones was the location of the AI character. As described in previous posts, I have the AI following and looking at the player. However, as the camera is set on a side viewpoint, it makes it impossible for the player to see the enemy if they are travelling towards the screen. With the AI automatically damaging the player if they get too close, this was a real problem.
To combat this, a number of solutions were discussed. These included a mini map showing the enemies position at all times as well as a warning sign above the players head when they were close to an enemy. It was finally decided upon that there would be an enemy indicator within the scene. This would be a small arrow that is placed at the edge of the screen which moves to show you the direction the enemy is coming from.
As I had completed previous work on the AI I decided that I would like to undertake this task. This week I looked at other games which use an enemy indicator to see how best to implement one. Jet Fighters, an iPhone game, stood out as an important one. It was clear in that game, you had a single viewpoint camera and without the indicator it would have made the game frustrating and too difficult to play. I've since looked into some tutorials and theory behind the code needed for the indicator and hope to implement it over the coming weeks. With these new coding challenges, I really feel that my skills are progressing.
Written by Phil
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