February update - lots of work!

Well hello!

Yes, I know it's mid-month, but it's been a while since the last big update so... "Go, bullet-points, Go!" :D

• Much work on implementing the computer terminal!
  • Designing and setting up the functionality of it (how many screens, content, how to navigate, etc.)
  • Putting the prototype version logic together (took bloody ages)
  • Updating it with 'proper' first-pass art (fiddly bollocks)
  • Adding in the 'first use' logic, so the player character comments on things as you boot up, login, go to each screen, etc.
  
  • For a more detailed breakdown of the kind of UI nonsense I've been through take a look here.

• Updated the tram model and lighting, as well as creating new art around the tram line itself
• Made camera zoom out as the tram gets moving

• Created a level zero, which is the loading level - detects the last scene you were in, loads it in the background and displays some lovely environment cameras behind the front end menu
• Oh yes, properly set up a front end menu too (Start and Quit work, no Settings screen yet)

• Changed the player controller from the Top Down Engine one to the old Unity third person character one because of a really odd issue that kept rotating my character when I didn't want it to - this involved changes to the camera target and other stuff too, which I won't go into detail about as it was a right headache, but it's done and working
• Updated all three demo scenes to work with the new player prefab (had to re-link all dialogues, cutscenes, and various other references to the new prefab) - as a side note, I should probably make a lot of these global, or create a single reference when the scene loads and use that instead if linking directly each time, but hey,  it works for now.

So, as you can see I've been churning through quite a few key elements - the computer terminal was the biggest task, as that's tied to unlocking doors and activating the exit, and requires a passcode which you find somewhere else. Glad that's done.

What's left to do then? Well, take a look at my Trello!

Only really a few big ticket items in there, especially adding save/load (which I might not even do for the demo as it's so short) and doing a full audio implementation pass. The rest is just some smaller UI logic stuff and a bit of tidy-up.

So overall, PENITENCE is in a good place right now!

Tony.