Mobile Technology: Week 4

Castle Climber Week 4 Progress

It’s week four and I have new additions to Castle Climber to share with you! Sadly most of these changes are not of a “visual” nature so the above GIF may seem very similar to last week’s GIF. But do rest assured I am hard at work on the game!

Features implemented

  • Object pooling! The game scene is only loaded in once at the start of the game, where everything that is needed is instantiated. Of course, if the need for extras arises, a new object is added to the pool when it is needed, so the system’s not inflexible!
  • Procedural level generation. This is the big one for this week. Last week I only had one very basic test level, but now the game is able to generate many different kinds of levels using the modular Castle Wall prefabs I made. The generation is seeded, meaning I can regenerate the same level again if need be. The way it is currently set up ensures that each level will always be the same across play sessions, i.e. level 1 will always be the same on any device.
  • The level progress meter. Every time the climber reaches a new piece of the Castle Wall, the progress meter is updated.
  • Difficulty scaling. The later levels become longer and have a higher chance of being made from hazardous Castle Wall pieces. The player’s speed also slightly increases with each completed level.
  • Added mirrored versions of existing hazardous pieces to increase level variety.

Features to add over the next week

  • Saving player progress (and an option to reset it). Currently, all progress is lost when the game is closed.
  • Shop interface, which will allow buying alternate skins for the climber with the player’s hard-earned coins.

That’s week four done. Until next week!

Written on February 16, 2020 | Tagged: Mobile Technology in Computer Games