Parkour! - Prototype 1 Devlog

Hi, our names are Aaron McCabe and Declan Phillips and this is the devlog where our game will be uploaded and updated as well as place to where we can inform people about what's going on in the creation of our game. This devlog will be a great place to get our idea's across and to communicate our process of making this game. 

Aaron

Ideation

The first thing that I did in the ideation of our game was to draw up a mind map. In this mind map i put all the ideas I personally had as well as expand on the ideas I currently had, Once I had a mind map that I was satisfied with me and my teammate showed our ideas and mind maps to each other. After we looked into each other idea's we decided on a general direction that we wanted to go towards as our ideas were very similar to each other. The questions that we both choosen are similar yet very different, we thought this is a good basis to go off as we believed that these we the foundation questions that needed answering if we decided to go in this direction. 

Question 

My question is Can I make an first person parkour system to where the player will be able to have full control of the character's movement. I believe this is the question that I should answer first as it will be a fundamental mechanic/system in our game. 

Prototype 

In my prototype I was able to answer my question and it worked out quite well, I was able to make an pretty good and complex parkour system. In the prototype you are able to walk/run around the area and you can also crouch as well, you can wall run and jump as well as climb up and downwards on the walls as you are wall running. So I do call this prototype quite successful as I believe it answered the question I set out to answer. 

Declan

Ideation

We knew we wanted to make a game based around parkour. I made a mind map - writing down everything that came to my head at that moment. Originally, the idea that I was most intrigued by was a Peanut Butter & Jelly parkour game. In this game, the player could control both a Peanut Butter character and a Jelly character, each with different physics. The player would be able to control how the dimensions of the characters allowing them to fit through certain gaps. However, I found it difficult in implementing this idea into a prototype. Another idea we had was a parkour/platformer where the player has full control of the character. I brainstormed and came up with the idea where the player has the ability to control each limb of a person. I thought about how difficult it would be to walk but I kind of liked the idea of the player having to learn to walk again and thought it would require some skill to master. I thought about how the player could bend each leg and quickly unbend them to spring upwards which can be used for platforming. 

Question

Can I make a movement system where the player has full control of the character's movement fun and which requires skill?

Prototype

I began researching similar types of games. From this I discovered what I would need to make it was an active ragdolls and so I did some research on it. I found it to be extremely fascinating and would love to explore active ragdolls more in future projects. I found this tutorial series by Happy Chuck Programming which was instrumental in helping me realise my ideas. Once the active ragdoll was setup, I began working on controlling each leg. How the active ragdoll in my prototype works is by having two rigidbodies in a scene - one with physics and another animated. By matching the physics ragdoll's rotations to the animated ragdoll it creates an active ragdoll. I then setup the animations to respond with input from the controller. The resulting prototype was pretty fun to mess around with. However, I have found the player to be too springy. This makes it too unpredictable which isn't desirable as it make it hard to move in a proper way. A fix might be to involve the hips more in the animations rather than just swinging the legs. Overall this prototype was fun to make and play and I learned a lot making it but there are a lot of areas for improvement.