Hello everyone!

Welcome back to another update on Corporate Chaos.

This week we spend some time on making more props and added changes to the movement system for smoother gameplay.

Art

Character

We changed the idea of pushing the chair to actually sitting on the chair with an engine attached to it. This makes more sense with the movement system we have now since it is just a continues speed with bursts of speed whenever u pull the string of the engine in the green or orange color.

Level Design

We made another iteration on the level design, this time in a clean manner, on a grid. Every area got a bit of attention - in the office, the obstacles and items got re-arranged. 

The meeting room's shortcut got changed from a projector screen, to a curtain. The corridors got their turns rounded up.

 The cafeteria has only one conveyor belt now, and the movable area got restricted. Following corridors and kitchen got re-scaled. 

The gym area changed from a series of rooms to a one continuous one.

Props

We also created some of the props we will be using later in level decoration.

We also fixed the meeting room colours to actually match the  color palette that we had initially chosen for it.

We also added some more props to the Chill Area

We also added an effect for when u time the boost wrong and hit the red.

Technical

We gave a final overhaul to the movement system. In past iterations, we felt that the movement wasn’t controllable and smooth enough. To fix this issue we decided to combine our past - pressing button to add velocity – system, with a traditional apply normal velocity in the direction the player is steering. By combining this, the player now has way better control over where they are going, while still keeping in the fun aspect of having to time your hits right to get that satisfying speed boost. 

Another change is the way the speed meter is represented in game. Before, we used an arc with three different colored sections and an arrow which moved along this arc. Now we use a circle that appears below the player when the south button is being held. While the circle is active, it grows until it reaches max size. Afterwards it shrinks back down again. The circle is also divided in to three colors that correspond to the size of the circle. The circle deactivates when the player lets go of the button, it will then check which color the circle had and use that color to apply the correct velocity changes to the player. By using the holding down/letting go of a button system, we solved an issue we previously had which was button mashing.

We also added one more item: the player now has the ability to pick up balls all around the office and throw them in front of them once picked up. If a player is hit by one of these balls, they get stunned for a short period of time. 

Changes to the environment were also made. We added 3 new obstacles to the level. Firstly, in the kitchen area, a set of gas pipes are hanging from the ceiling, which are leaking gas at random time intervals. Players don't want to get hit by these gases, as it restricts them from moving while they're colliding with it. Next, we have treadmills around the fitness area. These can either help or obstruct the player by boosting them in a certain direction. Lastly, we added a ball machine, also located in the fitness area. This machine fires balls across the gym, causing absolute mayhem. Once a player gets hit by one of these balls, they get stunned for a short amount of time. 

Lastly, we changed the camera functionality a bit. The walls are not obstructing the player's view anymore, as they become transparent once in the player's view.