The cactus level from background and environments is FINALLY done! All special effects, animation, programming and such by Nick Dolce. Concept by Yusuke Sato, as well as some modeling and texture maps and the actual layout of the level. Roberto Tercios also helped with modeling and texturing, mostly the armory room weapons. Roberto worked really hard on the assets he was given and learned a lot about the process. Actually we all had to learn a lot because this was the first time any of us had to use the Unreal engine and we had to figure most everything on our own, especially Nick. Anyways:
This is the level! Woo! The player spends a load of time outside running around on bridges and platforms.
Entry room: The player starts here. It's meant to kind fo trick te player into thinking he's in a cave or something. But then he steps out into the blinding desert sunlight to see that he's in a giant cactus.
The next room is the "lobby." It has big piles of fruit, supposedly harvested by the residents of the cactus as well as harvesting tools and the like. Plus, bug swarms!
The armory room: Loads of vases and racks filled with spears, bow and arrow, maces, all made from cactus parts.
The shrine room: Easily the coolest part. This area is meant to be easily recognized as a cathedral-esque room. Complete with totems, pews, and a grigantic goddess statue.
Throughout the level the player uses large crossbows to launch themsleves to distant platforms. This is the last one.
Hey, what's that up there?
Oh noes!
and... eaten....
Stomach room... right now the level just sort of ends. We intended to have some kind of puzzle or boss in here that would cause the cactus to upchuck the player, but time constraints and limited knowledge of unreal was a constant hinderence, even though we were contstanlty researching and learning new stuff.
We aslo have an easter egg. If you look closely as you leave the lobby, you can see an odd painting in an innecesable room.
If you take a leap of faith later on in the level, you can land in the room. It's got some doritos, Yusuke as a katamri guy, some onigiri, a sweet chicken, and a vehicle to fly around in.
All in all it was a good learning experience, but with more info about the engine it could have gone a lot smoother and we could have got way more done. Next quarter I will be doing another level, so I expect some pretty great stuff!
