» The Returnal Update

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I'M BACK!!!!

For real this time!! I've been busy with university, then I started working on other projects including 3D prints, electronics, a different game, then got busy with university again, and now I FINALLY started work on Project N5 again. And, as I promised in my last update, it would not take me another 3 months to get back to development – in fact, I undercut that deadline by a whole 24 hours!

Since even though Project N5 was stalled, I gained some more knowledge about and mostly confidence with Godot through another game project I'm working on in parallel with friends, I've kicked off Project N5 development by restructuring a few things. This means there's not that much visual stuff to show so far, but there are some sorely needed mechanical and programmatical under-the-hood improvements.

New 2D-Based Aim Helper

I overhauled the auto aim mechanism (which is now called aim helper). Previously, the aim helper worked by putting a 3D collision shape in front of the gun, registering all collisions within this cone, and determining a target by calculating the shortest distance between the player and the enemies. Here's a visual of the old cone at the tip of the N5 Blaster:

This was a good solution, because it allowed for targetting enemies without much effort – add an enemy to the 'targetable' group and let the aim helper script take care of it. However, customisation proved difficult. Since the collider was a 3D shape, a new 3D shape would have to be created for every weapon and every upgrade that demanded a unique shape. While this offered flexibility, it proved cumbersome in execution. Cones could only be changed in scale uniformally, which means that, while they can be changed in size, no single dimension could be changed without causing bugs. Keeping X and Y while increasing the Z distance would mandate a whole new shape. Furthermore, the cone would have to be manually rotated and positioned in front of the gun every frame, which wasn't particularly elegant.

Thus, a new solution was born: a 2D approach to the aim helper!

The way the new aim helper works is by putting a 2D collision shape on the screen of the player. All enemies contain a 2D shape as well, which is unprojected onto the screen by the player camera. This means that the 2D shapes are positioned on top of the 3D characters. As soon as the player's collision shape collides with one of the enemies', it's added to the list of collisions and the shortest distance is calculated. This procedure hasn't changed between the 3D and 2D approaches.

Using this 2D shape is a lot simpler, however, because it allows for much easier changes of the collision shape. Using just a circle, the diameter can be changed by just changing one variable, and the max distance can be changed with another variable – much more easily configurable than modelling new cones! And new shapes can easily be created using 1-bit (black and white) bitmaps instead of 3D shapes.

There's also a blue line shooting out of the gun in the picture above. That's a raycast spanning from the player to the targetted enemy, checking whether a wall is obstructing line of sight. Enemies can no longer be targetted if they're behind a wall or similar.

Overhauled N5 Weapon Icons

The N5 Blaster received an overhauled icon. The soon-to-be-implemented N5 Bomb Launcher also received its own icon!

I changed the icosphere by tracing its 3D counterpart (the ball inside the N5 Blaster's glass tube) from a different point of view. It wasn't symmetrical before – it is now.

Admittedly, seeing the two icons side-by-side... they look damn similar. I think they might be difficult to tell apart in-game. One of these icons will be changed most likely. I'm also considering using the right icon for the N5 Blaster instead, maybe.

The idea with these weapons is that they're both N5 series weapons – they are supposed to be similar in style to the protagonist and be default gear. Perhaps both of them will be available from the start of the game. They're basic weapons like the Lancer and Gravity Bomb in Ratchet & Clank 2, for instance.

Minor Changes

Hopping on the Signal Bus

Minor change, but I overhauled the inventory by removing complicated signal lines and simplifying them through a SignalBus singleton.

Previously, in order to change weapons, the quick select menu would directly interact with the inventory; the weapons menu would signal to the pause menu, and the pause menu would thus interact with the inventory. This was unnecessarily complicated.

Instead, I'm now using a SignalBus containing a signal on_player_equip() that can easily be triggered by the quick select and weapons menus without a direct connection to the inventory. In order to receive these signals, the inventory connects one of its functions to the signal in SignalBus, consolidating functions such as on_quick_select_item_equipped(), on_weapons_menu_item_equipped(), etc.

This SignalBus isn't even new in my game; I've previously already used it for the aim helper described above! Using such a bus is genuinely useful for any kind of Godot game that needs to allow communication between nodes that have no direct connection to one another. It's much more convenient – and safe! – than fetching nodes directly by their path, like get_node("/root/Main/Level/Player/CharacterBody3D/Inventory"). Imagine you change just one of these nodes' names a few weeks down the line. Nightmare to debug.

Strafing Like a Gladiator

Another minor change that affects gameplay more so than code: the player now strafes automatically when having a weapon equipped. This emulates the strafing behaviour in Ratchet: Gladiator, which may have been influenced by the fact that I've been playing this game a bunch these past few days... on Exterminator difficulty, no less. Not easy, but really fun.

Conveniently, forcing strafing when holding a weapon elminiates the need to fix bugs related to strafing – for example, if the player doesn't strafe, or doesn't stop strafing. Though I may need to change this behaviour again if I decide to introduce gadgets.

What's Next?

It's not quite certain, but I have ideas. Next on my agenda is, for example, continuing to clean up the project. I think there's a lot of streamlining I can do using signals, the SignalBus, and overall just writing more cohesive code. I've come a long way since I started this game project 13 or so months ago, after all.

I also want to implement more visual things. I've been meaning to 3D model again, creating crates, a new ammo pickup, and even some weapons. Of course, I'd also love to create a new, more final protagonist, but ideas are slow to come. Still, there are some I've newly come up with or written down. The N5 Bomb Launcher especially is something I want to implement soon. Since it's a thrower-type weapon, meaning it fires its shots in an arch and targetting the floor, there's a little bit of work involved to make that happen. I've been thinking about possible approaches to this lately, and I think I might settle on a pre-baked curve/collision mesh, because I think the PS2 Ratchet & Clank games may be using a similar approach.

Here's a sneak peek at an ammo pickup I started working on recently:

And of course, there's always the struggle of motivation. With my new game project, I have the fortune of working with two other people who also do work. We can motivate one another, since we're all interested in developing the game further. I don't have this with Project N5. At least as far as I know, I'm the only one who's really interested in seeing this game flourish, so there's no real option for me to gain motivation through other people. It's difficult, and I don't quite know how to deal with it. I've also considered uploading snippets onto my Instagram, but even disregarding my dislike for the platform, I don't think anyone would really care – I've uploaded snippets in the past already, to little resonance. I don't blame other people, but it just illustrates that I need to have intrinsic motivation to continue work on Project N5.

That's where my idea of adding visual things came from, by the way. By making visually (or sonically, for that matter) distinct changes, such as through introducing new meshes and models, I could see my progress much more clearly than I can now. Perhaps by gauging my progress through visuals, I could lift my motivation?

Then again, in order to create visual things, I'll have to have motivation from the start, so we're in a bit of a pickle here.

I can do this.