Blue Tengu’s Live Game Development Show – Season 2, Episode 27

Blue Tengu - Flying Around Clouds
In this episode of the game development show, we add clouds that block the sun and prevent the player from recharging if caught under them.

We’ve always wanted to add weather, but a question about the advantage of having an altitude system was brought up two weeks ago by viewer Pandabitz, and clouds were one of the answers: by flying low, you have much less sunlight to work with, and tougher enemies to deal with.

One of the first difficulties we encountered was how to deal with overlapping clouds. If they’re going to be semi-transparent, that means any overlap is going to make them appear “thicker”. In real life, that’s exactly what happens, but there is something a little off about it in a video game. For the moment, we decided to limit the number of possible overlapping clouds to a maximum of 2, though that decision might change.

We also needed to avoid problems where concentrated sunlight (the yellow hex tiles) aren’t appearing under clouds, so we added a collision even to make sure that doesn’t happen. When sun touches cloud, the cloud shrinks and goes away.

Also, to distinguish higher clouds from lower ones, we’ve made the lower ones dark, but it’s still not quite enough information for the player to work with, so we’ll need to find a better way of letting the player know whether they’re above or below.

Game Development Show Tasks Worked on This Episode:

  • Higher Clouds are Light, Lower Clouds are Dark
  • Player Loses Energy if Under a Cloud
  • The Number of Overlapping Clouds have a Limit
  • Sunlight Makes Clouds Shrink Away

And thank you again to Pandabitz for your very generous donation, it made our day!

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